Murder Ring (A DI Geraldine Steel Mystery) (31 page)

‘I understand you been fitting up my son.’

There was nothing more Geraldine could say. In a multiple murder enquiry there was no prospect of bail. All she could do was encourage Rosa to take Theo home. There was no question of her seeing Jack straight away as he was seeing his lawyer, after which he was going into an interview.

‘So when
can
I see him?’ Rosa wailed as Geraldine stood up to leave.

Geraldine turned to the constable who was sitting with Rosa. ‘Look after this, will you? Get her another cup of tea and send her on her way.’

‘I’m not going without my boys!’ Rosa shrieked as Geraldine left the room.

Jack was even more sullen than he had been the day before. To begin with he refused to answer any questions.

Adam challenged him about his arrest. ‘There’s no point in trying to deny it. What were you fighting about? Why did you stab him? Think carefully. Remember we have witnesses who saw exactly what happened. We know you started the fight.’

‘Him getting jiggy with my bitch so I shank him.’

Geraldine held out a photograph of a naked girl they had found on his phone. ‘Is this your girlfriend?’

‘What you doing with my gear? You got no right to look at my phone. I never give you permission. It’s private. You got no right looking at that.’

‘Where did you get the gun from?’ Geraldine asked, putting the photograph away.

‘What gun? I never had no gun.’

‘We’re talking about the gun you gave to your brother, Theo.’

‘What you talking about? I never had no gun.’

Adam leaned forward. He spoke very softly. ‘You mean Theo got a gun all by himself?’

Jack looked worried.

‘Theo was arrested with a gun in his possession, a gun that was used to shoot two people dead. We thought maybe you might know something about that. But if you didn’t give your brother the gun, then it seems he’s guilty after all.’

‘Guilty? What you mean he’s guilty? Theo ain’t done nothing.’

Adam replied that if Jack hadn’t shot two people and given the weapon to his brother to hide, then Theo must be solely responsible for what had happened.

Jack glared at the detective chief inspector. ‘What you on, man? Theo ain’t never done nothing to you.’

‘No,’ Adam leaned forward, sensing his advantage, ‘but he shot two men and they’re dead. He’s going down for a long time. He may never come out. I can’t see him surviving long behind bars.’

Geraldine thought of Theo singing happily to himself in the cell, and said nothing.

‘Man, you full of shit.’

‘The gun was found in your brother’s possession. A jacket belonging to one of the victims was found in your locked room. The other victim was shot at the premises where you work, while you were there. What happened, Jack? Was it you or Theo who shot those men? You can’t continue to pretend you know nothing about it. Who was it, Jack? You or your brother? Or were you in it together? Come on, Jack, you need to give me an answer,’ Adam insisted.

‘We need to take a break,’ the lawyer said. ‘I have to talk to my client.’

59

‘
D
AMN IT,’
A
DAM
fumed, ‘we had him. He was about to confess when the bloody brief interrupted. You saw it on his face, didn’t you? I’m not imagining things. We had him.’

‘We’ll be back on it soon,’ Geraldine replied.

‘We have to keep the pressure up. Did you see his face when I pinned him down? He knew the game was up, and his blinking brief knew it too. That’s why he was so quick to insist on taking a break. It was him or Theo, it had to be one or other of them.’

Geraldine wondered if Jack was guilty or just concerned about his brother, and whether Theo would be capable of using a gun, but she didn’t contradict her superior officer.

‘One more minute in there and we’d have had him,’ he insisted, glancing at his watch. ‘We need to get back on it as quickly as possible.’

When they sat down again, the lawyer spoke first.

‘My client would like to confess. He found the gun at his place of work after the shooting took place. That was the first time he had ever been in possession of this or any gun. He deeply regrets that, instead of handing the gun in to the police as he now recognises he should have done, he took it home with him. He is adamant that he never had any intention of using it. The gun was to be used for self-defence only.’

Behind his mask of composure, Geraldine sensed Adam’s disappointment. Pressing his lips together, he nodded.

‘I never done it,’ Jack muttered. ‘Whatever you said, I never done it.’

‘You need to be more specific,’ Geraldine said.

Adam glanced at her then repeated her words. ‘Tell us exactly what happened.’

‘I never done it. I never shot them two geezers, like you said I done. I lifted the old guy’s jacket and legged it outta there, just like I told you. I heard a shot, but I never seen nothing. The other geezer what was shot in the bar, I never shot him neither. I only found the gun and took it home. But it weren’t me what shot him and it weren’t Theo neither. And that’s all I gotta say. My blad, he ain’t never used a shooter in his life. He wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with no shooter. So you leave him alone. This ain’t nothing to do with him. He don’t even know what a gun is. He don’t know nothing, I’m telling you.’

‘So you found the jacket in the bar on the night its owner was shot, and then a few days later you found a gun there after another man was shot. A jury might find that hard to believe,’ Geraldine said, ‘so let’s try again and this time you need to answer our questions truthfully.’

‘My client has nothing more to say,’ the lawyer replied.

Persuaded that Jack wasn’t going to add anything to his statement, Adam stood up and gathered his papers together as the suspect was escorted from the interview room.

‘He gave a neat explanation for having the gun without saying anything that implicates him in the shootings,’ he burst out when he and Geraldine were alone. ‘I’m not convinced by his account, but a jury might swallow it. I’m just saying – it’s something we need to consider. He confessed he took the gun, Geraldine, but we need more than that.’

‘What if it was Theo all along?’

Adam sat down again abruptly. ‘The thought did occur to me. To be honest, Geraldine, I’ve no idea whether it was the nutter or the wide boy, or if they were both in on it together, but whichever one of them it was, he has to be stopped. And if Jack’s statement’s a lie, and that comes out, then he might be lying about the shooting too.’ He shook his head, but he was smiling. ‘It has to be one or other of them. So if we’re not ready to break open the champagne yet, we can put it on ice.’

He jumped up and held the door for Geraldine. She couldn’t help returning his smile, although she felt his triumph was a little premature.

‘Champagne, eh?’ she replied. ‘It was a pint of bitter with my previous DCI. Things are looking up!’

‘That’s more like it. I was beginning to think you suspected we’d arrested the wrong bloke.’

Geraldine didn’t point out that it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened on this case. First Lenny, then Theo, and now Jack, had been accused of killing David Lester. She hoped they had the right man at last.

‘We need Jack to make a full confession. We know what he did with the gun afterwards, now we need him to own up that he shot both men.’

As Adam strode away, Geraldine checked her phone and saw a missed call. There was no message. She went outside to call back.

‘Hi Louise, it’s Geraldine – that is, Erin – Milly Blake’s daughter. You phoned?’

‘Yes. We wondered if you would like to be involved in the funeral arrangements?’

‘What?’

‘For your mother. Would you like to discuss it? We can make the arrangements for you, if you prefer not to be involved.’

Geraldine’s breath caught in the back of her throat so that she couldn’t speak for a second. ‘It’s not something I’ve really thought about. I mean, I’ve no idea what she would have wanted.’

‘It’s up to you, as her next of kin. But if you’d rather not be involved, you don’t have to be. You just have to say the word.’

‘Can I think about it?’

‘Of course. And did the hospital give you a letter from your mother? Only the ward sister mentioned it –’

‘Yes, they gave it to me.’

As they were talking, Geraldine walked over to a row of silver birches growing beside the car park. She was dimly aware of the faint rustling of the wind in the leaves above her head.

‘Oh good. And I take it there was no mention in the letter about what she wanted at her funeral?’

Geraldine hesitated to admit that she hadn’t opened the letter yet. She had put it in the drawer beside her bed, along with the one old photograph she had of her mother.

‘I’d like to think about it,’ she repeated. ‘When do you need to know by?’

‘There’s no rush. Shall we speak tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

She hung up. Having met her mother just once, she had until the following day to decide on the kind of funeral Milly might have wanted. Hysterical laughter bubbled out of her. She wasn’t even sure if she was laughing or crying. With a sharp intake of breath she pulled herself together. Her mother’s funeral would have to wait until she had read the letter at home that evening. In the meantime, she had a job to do.

60

T
HAT NIGHT,
G
ERALDINE
opened the drawer beside her bed and took out the photograph of her mother, and the envelope on which ‘Erin Blake’ had been written in shaky capital letters. She took them into the living room and placed them side by side on the coffee table. Then she went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of red wine. Returning to the living room she sat on the sofa, sipping her wine and studying the letter. It was sealed in a cheap white envelope that her mother must have been given in the hospital.

With sudden resolve, she gulped the rest of her glass of wine. Snatching up the letter she tore the envelope open, removed the sheet of paper, and stared at the words scrawled on it. The writing sloped downwards on the right hand side of the page and it looked messy, but the words were easy to decipher. Having scanned through it, she poured herself another glass of wine and read the letter again carefully, struggling to cope with her shock.

Dear Erin

I’m sorry we never talked. It’s my fault. Forgive me. I never should have left it so long for us to meet. Now it’s me that’s waiting for you. I hope you come back to the hospital in time for me to see you. If you don’t, the nurse promised to give you this letter. Please forgive me if you read this. It means we never got to talk, not properly.

When the social worker said you wanted to meet me, I was so happy. But then she told me you’re a policewoman, and I knew it was better for you to know nothing about me and my life. You would be ashamed of me, and I couldn’t bear that. God knows I’ve done more than enough hurt to you already.

I never wanted you to be punished for my wickedness. Please don’t hate me. I only wanted what was best for you. It broke my heart to lose you but I didn’t know what else to do. I think about you every day.

When you were born, they told me Helena was going to die. But she didn’t. And then time went by and I couldn’t give her away. It sounds bad, but nothing I ever did went right. Now I’m gone, you need to find Helena, and help her. God knows, I tried.

I wish I’d kept you as well but what happened was better for you. The social worker said the family you went to were good people. It would have been better for Helena if she’d gone with you but she was sick and they said she wouldn’t live.

I can’t help Helena but you can, if she’s still alive.

I’m sorry. Please forgive me.

Milly

your mum

When Geraldine finished reading, she touched the page gently with one finger. Her dead mother had written to apologise for never knowing her. Tears trickled down her cheeks. Too emotional to think clearly, she understood only that, through some bitter irony, her career with the police had prevented her mother from wanting to meet her. Reading the letter again, she gathered that she had a sister, Helena. Her sister had been expected to die when Geraldine was born, but she had survived. It sounded as though Helena might be her twin.

She gazed around her neat living room with a sense of unreality. She had no idea what her mother had done that could be so shameful. Whatever it was, Geraldine would have done her best to help her. She was devastated to learn that her mother had died believing Geraldine might not forgive her. The fact that her mother had been reluctant to meet her once she had learned her daughter worked for the police suggested that Milly had lived on the wrong side of the law. But that did not excuse her refusal to give Geraldine a chance to help her.

‘I forgive you,’ she whispered to a sheet of paper with words scrawled over it. ‘I forgive you.’