False Tongues (29 page)

‘Inspector!' Paul Bradley interposed an outraged face between them. ‘Watch your language! There's no need to speak like that to a lady.'

‘Oh, she's no lady,' Neville muttered, giving Lilith up as a lost cause and turning to the bearded man. ‘I think it's time for us to talk privately,' he said, with a strong emphasis on the last word. He led him toward the stairs.

Bradley hesitated. ‘What about my solicitor? He must be on his way. I thought he would be here by now.'

‘They'll send him to the right place when he arrives,' Neville assured him.

He took him upstairs to his office. ‘While we're waiting for your solicitor,' he said, ‘and before Josh gets involved, I think it would be useful for the two of us to have a chat.'

Cowley stuck his head in the door. ‘I'm back, Guv.'

‘Come in and join us, Sid,' Neville said. ‘Mr Bradley, this is my sergeant, DS Cowley.' There was no need to perform an introduction in the other direction.

‘Perhaps one or the other of you could explain this outrage to me, then,' Paul Bradley exploded, swivelling his head between them. ‘If it's your idea of a joke, it's not funny. And it's gone on long enough. I'll take my son home now, thank you very much.'

‘Josh isn't going anywhere for a while,' Neville stated.

‘Well, what on earth has put this insane idea in your heads, that my son is a murderer?'

Neville looked at Cowley, who raised his eyebrows. His expression said as clearly as if he'd spoken the words that this one was down to Neville. He was the Guv; he was going to have to tell him.

‘Well,' said Neville, then cleared his throat. ‘Actually, Mr Bradley, your son has confessed. To murder.'

***

Margaret had done a great deal of thinking, and some praying as well.

John Kingsley was right, she knew now. She'd been beating herself up for a long time, and the only thing it accomplished was to make her feel bad about herself. Her guilt had tainted the memories of the good years she'd had with Hal, paralysed her spiritual life in the present, and poisoned any future she might have had. And all unnecessarily.

God had forgiven her, long ago. Now she could forgive herself.

The realisation was like an enormous weight lifting from her soul.

She wanted to tell someone about it, share the wonderful feeling of well-being and wholeness.

After a moment's thought, she rang her son. She couldn't tell him what had happened, of course, but she needed to talk to someone.

‘Mum,' Alexander said. ‘Great to hear from you. Would you mind if I rang you back? Luke was late getting home from work, and we're just sitting down to supper.'

‘Oh, I won't bother you, then. We can talk another time. It wasn't anything important,' she assured him, smiling to herself at the understatement.
Only getting my life back.

Her doorbell sounded. With a certain sense of inevitability, Margaret went downstairs and opened the door to find Keith Moody standing outside.

‘I feel like you've been avoiding me,' he said without preamble.

‘Well…maybe.' She smiled.

He gave an awkward shrug, followed by a nervous laugh. ‘May I come in? There's something I'd really like to tell you.'

‘Certainly.' She stepped back and let him in.

***

‘Confessed?' Paul Bradley said blankly. ‘But that's daft. It's impossible.'

‘Irregular,' Neville said, choosing to take his assertion literally. ‘but entirely possible. I told him we needed to wait until you got here before he made any statement. But he insisted on telling me that he'd killed Sebastian Frost. The boy who was stabbed on Paddington Green the other night.'

‘What?'

Neville decided to be upfront and honest about it. ‘I have to tell you, Mr Bradley,' he went on, ‘that anything he said to me previously, without you present, is not legally admissible.'

‘Then he'll unsay it,' Bradley stated. ‘I don't know what's got into the boy, telling porky pies like that. Attention-seeking, I suppose. You hear about things like that—people confessing to crimes just to get attention. And maybe the boy hasn't had enough of that since his mum died.' He shook his head. ‘I try my best, of course. But I do have to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads, Inspector. It's not easy, being a single parent.'

‘I'm sure it's not.'

Bradley sighed; the fight seemed to have gone out of him quite suddenly. ‘But it's the Lord's will. He needed her more than we did, I suppose. And he—the Lord—sustains us. The church fellowship has been a wonderful support to us. A true blessing.'

A religious nutter, Neville said to himself with disgust. That was all they needed. He risked a quick look at Cowley, who rolled his eyes.

His phone rang. ‘Walter Kendrick is in reception,' the desk sergeant told him. ‘Mr Bradley's solicitor, apparently.'

Neville thanked her. ‘Your solicitor is here,' he told Bradley. ‘Mr Kendrick?'

‘That's right. Walt Kendrick. A member of our church,' Bradley explained. ‘I've never needed to call on his professional services before, of course, being a law-abiding Christian family and all, but I know he's a good man.'

A good man he might be, but Neville had run across Mr Kendrick before, in the course of his job, and had little respect for his professional skills. Not for nothing was he known as ‘Wally' to the police.

‘Sid,' Neville said, ‘could you pop down and fetch Mr Kendrick? And on the way, could you ask Sergeant Pratt to prepare an interview room? And,' he added, ‘Could you ask her to tell Josh that his father is here?'

‘Right, Guv,' Cowley assented.

***

Margaret led Keith upstairs to her drawing room, then offered him coffee.

‘No, thanks,' he demurred. ‘I had some after dinner.' He made no attempt to touch her. ‘I just…need to talk to you.'

‘I'm glad you've come,' she said, gesturing him into a chair. ‘I need to tell
you
something, as well. Something really important.'

He looked apprehensive; she smiled. ‘It's something good. I promise.'

Keith relaxed, visibly. ‘Then you go first.'

She found it easier than she'd expected. He was a good listener, she discovered, and didn't interrupt at all as she recounted her story.

Margaret told him about Hal, and their marriage. She told him about its tragic conclusion, and the paralysing guilt that had followed. And she told him about her transforming encounter with John Kingsley, who had made her see what she'd done to herself.

‘I told you John was a good man,' Keith said, when she'd finished.

‘He's…amazing. That's all I can say.'

‘So you're open to…a new start?' he asked hopefully.

‘Yes.' She got up from her chair and stood in front of him.

Keith rose and put his arms round her. ‘I'm so glad,' he said.

‘So am I.' Once again her head found its natural place, in the curve of his shoulder. For a moment she allowed herself to enjoy the sensation, without a trace of guilt holding her back. Then she remembered, and pulled away slightly, looking up into his face. ‘But you wanted to tell me something,' she reminded him.

‘It will keep,' he said, his face unreadable.

***

Neville allowed Paul Bradley to have a few minutes alone with Josh before the formal interview; he was glad he wasn't in the boy's shoes.

But when they emerged from their conference, Josh was smiling and calm. It was his father who was scowling. ‘He won't budge,' he said to Neville. ‘I don't know what to do with the boy.'

If Josh was determined to incriminate himself, as he seemed to be, there wasn't much his father
could
do, Neville reflected. This was probably not going to be a pleasant interview. But at least there were signs that it could go his way: if Josh didn't retract his confession, and he could get him to repeat it under caution, it should stand as legally valid.

And Josh refused, flat out, to have a private consultation with his father's solicitor before the interview. ‘There's no point,' he stated. ‘He'll just tell me not to say anything. That would be a waste of everyone's time.'

So they went into the interview room, for the beginning of the formal proceedings.

Neville identified the parties present for the recording, issued the required caution, then tried to clarify some ground rules. ‘Mr Bradley,' he said, ‘I'll be asking your son a number of questions. This may be difficult for you, but you're not to answer on his behalf. You're here as an observer, and to oversee his interests, as his parent. Your solicitor, Mr Kendrick, may advise Josh on whether he should provide answers to my questions, but Josh is not obliged to take his advice. Do you understand?'

‘I understand.'

Taking a seat at the table across from Josh, Neville began by getting straight to the point. ‘Josh, did you kill Sebastian Frost?'

‘Yeah,' Josh said.

His father jerked forward. ‘Isn't that a leading question? Walt, is he allowed to ask him that?'

‘Mr Bradley.' Neville kept his voice courteous, but frowned his displeasure; this interview would never end if the man was going to behave like this. ‘We're not in a court of law. We're in a police interview room. There's no such thing as a leading question in here.'

‘Right.' Bradley subsided back into his chair.

‘All right. Josh, would you tell me, in your own words, what happened last Sunday night?'

‘You don't have to answer,' Walt Kendrick said.

Josh ignored the solicitor. ‘Could I have a Coke?'

Neville sighed. ‘Sure. Sergeant Cowley, could you get a Coke for Josh?'

Cowley left the room; Neville announced the change of personnel into the tape machine, and again when he returned with a can.

‘Resuming the interview,' he said. ‘Josh, what happened on Sunday night?'

The boy popped the seal and took a swig. ‘Seb Frost had been on my case all weekend. Guess he didn't have anything better to do, since it was the school holidays. He sent me lots of texts, saying that he hated me and stuff like that. I just got sick of it. I texted him and asked him to meet me on Paddington Green. Then I went to the kitchen and got a knife out of the drawer. I went to Paddington Green, near the church. Seb showed up a little while later. He laughed at me. Said I was a pathetic ginger runt.' The boy ran his finger round the rim of the Coke can. ‘So I stabbed him. Then I went home.'

‘Did you stay around to see how badly he was hurt?'

‘No.' Josh shook his head. ‘I didn't care. If he was dead, that was all right by me.'

‘It was all right if he was dead?'

He shrugged. ‘Yeah. He deserved it.'

Paul Bradley jerked to his feet. ‘Josh knows the difference between right and wrong,' he said urgently to Neville. ‘“Thou shalt not kill” is one of the Ten Commandments. He knows that. He can't be telling the truth about this. His mum and I taught him the Bible from the minute he was born.'

‘Sit down, Mr Bradley,' Neville said, more sternly this time, then turned back to Josh. ‘What time was this, and where was your father when this happened?'

‘It was late. Maybe eleven o'clock, half past. Dad was in bed. Asleep, I guess. He usually goes to bed pretty early.'

‘It was Easter Sunday, the day of Our Lord's resurrection from the dead,' Paul Bradley interposed. ‘I'd had a busy day, at church. Of course I was in bed at eleven o'clock, even if I didn't have to work the next day.'

He couldn't put him out of the room, but Neville wished it was in his power to gag the boy's father. ‘Please,' he said, glaring. ‘Josh, did you see anyone else on Paddington Green? Was Sebastian alone, or did he have anyone with him?

There was a tiny hesitation. ‘He was alone,' Josh stated.

‘And you didn't see anyone else? Dog walkers, or late joggers, or couples…courting?'

He shook his head. 'No.'

Neville moved on. ‘Josh, what did you do with the knife, after you'd stabbed Sebastian?'

The boy played with the Coke can for a minute, spinning it round on the table. ‘I wiped it off in the grass and put it back in my pocket. Then I walked down to the canal, under the flyover, and threw it in.'

That was exactly what Neville would have done, in those circumstances; in the morning he'd have to get them on to dragging the canal. ‘And then?'

‘Then I went home and went to bed. There weren't any more texts from Seb.' The boy smiled grimly.

His father groaned, but at least he held his tongue.

‘Josh, I want to ask you a few questions about these texts you had from Sebastian. And messages on Facebook, I believe?'

The boy shifted in his chair. ‘Okay.'

‘You say he texted you, frequently, and sent you messages on the Facebook social networking website.'

‘Yeah.'

‘What was the content of these messages?'

Josh cleared his throat. ‘Like I said. He called me a ginger runt. Stuff like that.'

‘And did he make unkind comments about you not having as much money as he did?'

The boy gave his father a sideways glance. ‘Yeah. Because his parents are rich doctors, like.'

Now Neville was getting to the tricky bit. ‘Did Sebastian Frost ever make disparaging comments on other aspects of your lifestyle?'

‘Lots of stuff,' Josh admitted. ‘I mean, he hated me. He said anything that he thought would get on my wick.'

‘Why didn't you tell me this, Josh?' his father interposed. ‘I had no idea you were being bullied! I would have done something about it.'

He turned to his father. ‘Yeah, you would have prayed, I suppose.'

‘Yes, I would have!'

Neville wrested back control. ‘Please don't speak to your son, Mr Bradley. And Josh,' he commanded, ‘look at me.'