Relentless (8 page)

it looked from the outside but still impressively done in a
minimalist style that was all the rage these days but made it
appear virtually unlived in. The floors were varnished wood; the
walls cream; the occasional rugs alternated between black and
white; the hall and dining-room furniture expensive combinations
of mahogany and cast iron. The whole thing seemed to
Bolt to belong to a man with a phobia about dirt. A plasma TV
that was bigger and flashier than the one in the team's HQ hung
on the living-room wall like a futuristic ornament, facing a
pair of linen sofas that had been symmetrically positioned in
a perfect yet rather pointless V-shape.
Bolt and Mo spent the next half an hour inspecting the house
while trying not to get in the way of the dozen or so SOCO
officers who swarmed over it looking for tiny clues - traces of
DNA, strands of clothing, anything, in fact, that would help
to identify the two killers. A search of a house like this would
take anything up to three days, and if there were leads here,
they would be found. The technology available to the police
was getting more advanced every year and it was getting to the
point where only the most intelligent of criminals could operate
successfully. This was, of course, a good thing. It was nice to
see the bad guys getting caught, and with such incriminating
evidence implicating them that any denial was rendered pointless,
but something of the job of detective had been lost too. The
crime was no longer such a puzzle, the detective no longer such an important part of the process. Often, their job was done
for them, by the CCTV operators and the guys from SOCO. . Sometimes, Bolt had to admit, it wasn't so much fun as it used to
be.
In the master bedroom, where Calley's kingsize futon took up
mucti of the floorspace,,they found what they were looking for.

A pair of neckties had been knotted through the wooden frame
on each side of the bed's head. These had obviously been used
to restrain him, and the several small black marks on the
brilliant white sheets in the middle of the bed confirmed their
suspicions that it was here that a naked flame had been applied
to Jack Calley's groin. Two SOCO guys were on their hands and
knees examining the floor around the bed, and it was clear there
wasn't much else the NCS men could do.
'So, what do you think happened, boss?' asked Mo as they
stood well back looking down at the futon, the SOCO guys
studiously ignoring their presence.
'My guess is that when Calley let his killers in, they dragged
him up here. Used his own ties to secure him and then went to
work with the lighter, or whatever they were using to extract
their information.'
'But somehow he manages to escape, get down the stairs
and out the back door, even though there are two of them and
they've tied him to the bed?' Mo sounded sceptical.
'You think he had some help?'
He shrugged. 'They were torturing him here and he ended up
dying two hundred yards away. So something's not right.'
Bolt looked down at the futon again. He imagined Jack Calley
helpless and screaming on it while his killers went to work, and
was inclined to agree.

As they moved out of Calley's front door back into the open air,
Bolt's mobile rang again. It was Jean, and she wasn't hanging
about.
'I've got hold of the liaison officer at O2, dragged him away
from a corporate do at the football,' she said. 'O2 are Calley's
network provider, and he was making calls on his phone
today. Nine in all, to seven different numbers. The last one was
recorded only three hours ago, at one minute past three. It
lasted thirty-three seconds.'
'What about incoming?'
'The last incoming call was a lot earlier. One sixteen, and it
was from a Michael Calley, so I'm assuming a family member.'
'OK, that's fair enough. Can you tell me who the recipient of
Calley's last call was?'
'Yes, it was to a residential landline in the name of a Tom and
Katherine Meron.'
Bolt pulled a notebook from his pocket and wrote this information
down, taking Meron's number and address from Jean.
He told her she'd done a good job, and rang off.

Mo lit a cigarette while Bolt filled him in on what Jean had
told him.
'Do we know anything about this guy Meron?' he asked when
Bolt had finished.
'Nothing at the moment.'

'Do you think we should see what we can find out?'
Bolt looked at his watch. It was quarter past six, and there was
a chill in the air. The sky was overcast with dark clouds on the
horizon, and it looked like rain. At that moment, his apartment
in the heart of the city seemed like a very inviting place to be.
'Sure,' he said, letting curiosity get the better of him. 'Why
not?'

10

The door to the interview room opened and two men in dark
suits stepped inside, moving slowly like they were actors trying
to maximize the effect of their entrance. The older one, who was
mid-forties or thereabouts, with hair that was a mixture of red
and grey and a moustache that was just red, introduced himself
as DCI Rory Caplin. His colleague, DC Ben Sullivan, was a
taller, well-built man of about thirty with a neat head of short
black hair and a deliberately imposing manner. He looked at me
with barely concealed contempt, an expression that seemed to
come naturally to the cold, tight features of his meticulously
barbered face. There was, of course, no shaking of hands.

By now, my lawyer, Douglas McFee, was sitting next to me,
and he gave the detectives the sort of friendly, paternal smile
that he'd been using on me all evening. I didn't feel this was a
very good sign. Whenever I see defence lawyers in interviews on
the TV they're invariably ruthlessly confrontational in their
dealings with the forces of law and order, not grinning at them.
Given my luck so far today, I suppose I should have been
thankful they didn't all jump up and high-five each other. DCI
Caplin gave McFee little more than a curt nod before pointing a
remote control at a tape machine built into the wall. A red light
came on and it immediately clicked into life.
'Interview of Thomas David Meron on suspicion of murder of
Vanessa Charlotte Blake,' said DCI Caplin in a surprisingly
soft Northern Irish accent, 'commencing six twenty-one p.m. on
Saturday May twenty-first.' He mentioned the names of the
other people present, then fixed me with a gaze that was in
equal parts sympathetic and untrusting. It was an impressive
combination. 'What were you doing at the university today?' he
asked me.
I didn't answer for a moment. I was still thinking about what
McFee had told me only a matter of minutes ago: that my wife's
fingerprints had been found on a knife used to murder one of
her colleagues. I didn't even know she'd ever been fingerprinted.
It was one more worrying thing to take in on a day that had been
full of them.
McFee nodded, to let me know I could answer the question,
and I told the truth: I'd been looking for my wife.
'Do you often go and see your wife at work?' It was DC
Sullivan speaking now. He leaned forward as he spoke, his
expression now mixing puzzlement with the contempt.
'No,' I answered.

'When was the last time you visited her there?'
I looked at McFee, and he nodded again, allowing me to
answer. 'I can't remember,' I said. 'Months ago.'
'This year?'
'I don't know. Probably not.' I was conscious that I sounded
nervous, which was because I was. And I wasn't stupid. I could
tell where they were going with these questions. 'There's a good
reason why I went today.'
'Is there a good reason why you sustained two knife cuts to
your face and body, Tom?' asked DCI Caplin.
'Yes,' I said, willing myself to remain calm. 'There is.' And I
told them how I came to be attacked, noting the sceptical look
on Caplin's ruddy face and the frankly incredulous one on
Sullivan's, as if I was telling them that I'd been attacked by a
marauding band of goblins led by Harry Potter. Mind you, the
more times I told it, the stranger a story it became, even to my
ears, and I remembered that McFee hadn't looked entirely convinced either when I'd told him earlier.
Caplin nodded slowly. 'So, this masked man who assaulted
you, he was the only person you saw. You didn't see the victim,
Miss Blake, or your wife when you were at the university?'
I shook my head. 'No.'
'Where do you think your wife'U be now?'

The $64,000 question. 'I really don't know. I've tried to call
her on her mobile phone but she's not answering.' I knew that
this didn't sound good for Kathy, but it wouldn't take long for
the police to find out about my attempts to contact her. 'But one
thing I do know is that she's innocent. I was attacked by a man
with a filleting knife with a yellow handle, and he must have
been the person who killed Vanessa.'
They didn't argue with this version of events. Instead, they

started questioning me about Vanessa. My relationship with her.
My wife's relationship with her. I was vague. I said I didn't really
know her that well, which was true. I said my wife got on fine
with her as far as I knew. Their technique followed a pattern.
Caplin would try to draw information out of me slowly and with
comparative gentleness, while now and again Sullivan would
chip in with a series of aggressive questions. It was the classic
good cop/bad cop technique, and it surprised me because, unlike
the ruthless lawyer business, I only thought they did that sort of
thing in the movies and on TV shows. It wasn't very effective
either, mainly because I was telling the truth.
Occasionally they tried to trip me up by asking the same
question twice but in different ways. However, because I wasn't
attempting any bullshit, I parried them without too much trouble,
and with only limited help from McFee, whose enthusiasm for my
case seemed to be plummeting faster than frozen airplane turd.
'You ought to be out there trying to find the man who
attacked me and killed Vanessa,' I said when there was a pause
in proceedings. 'And helping me find my wife.'
'We are trying to find your wife,' said Sullivan accusingly.
'She didn't do anything. I promise you.'
'Why are her prints on the murder weapon, then?'
They had me there. Whichever way I looked at it, and I was
looking at it in every way possible, I couldn't explain that cold

fact away. 'I don't know,' I said eventually, trying too hard to
keep the defeat out of my voice. As I spoke, I looked at McFee,
but he seemed to be inspecting something on the ceiling with
rapt interest. For a long moment I felt completely and utterly
alone in the world.
'Why don't you tell us the truth?' demanded Sullivan, leaning
forward again, his narrow eyes boring into mine.

I met his gaze. I had no choice. 'I am. I promise you. I am
telling the truth.'
'You've got to see things from our point of view, Tom,' said
Caplin quietly, folding his arms and rocking back in the chair
in a way that was peculiarly avuncular. 'No-one else saw this
man you're talking about, yet we have several witnesses at the
university today who saw a man fitting your description running
away from the scene.'
'My client's not denying, he was there, or that he ran away,
DCI Caplin,' put in McFee.
'No, I'm not. I was there.'
Caplin casually lifted an arm to halt any dissent. 'The point is,
we know you were there, and we know the victim was there. We
also know, because you've told us, that the injuries you received
are from the murder weapon, but the only witness to the alleged
masked man you talk about is you.'
'We're putting it to you, Mr Meron,' said Sullivan, 'that the
masked man didn't exist,'
'Well, I'm putting it to you that he did. How the hell do you
think I got these injuries?'
Sullivan allowed himself a little smirk. 'As far as we can
see, there's only one way you could have got them, Mr Meron.
They were inflicted by your wife during a violent struggle.
Either because you interrupted her attacking Vanessa Blake, or
because, more likely, she interrupted you.'
'This is ludicrous, gentlemen,' put in McFee, going to town on
the word 'ludicrous' with his lilting Scottish burr. 'My client's
already told you what happened.'
'But the problem is, Dougie,' said Caplin, pronouncing the
name 'Doogie', 'we don't believe him. It's an extremely farfetched
story.'

'No more far-fetched than the one you're peddling,' I said. 'I
hardly knew Vanessa Blake. I've met her maybe five times in the
past five years, and that's probably an exaggeration. And if I was
disturbed by my wife and attacked her, then why didn't you find
her?'
I was pleased with the incisiveness of this latter question.
It made a mockery of their theory, but to my dismay, neither
man made any attempt to accept this. Instead, they simply
ignored it.
'But this masked man business,' continued Caplin, making a
dismissive gesture with the hand he'd lifted a few moments
earlier. 'You're going to have to come up with something better
than that. It makes us think you're hiding something. It'd be
best for everyone concerned if you just told us what really
happened.'
Sullivan turned his beady eyes on McFee. 'You'll be doing
your client a favour if you get him to talk, Doogie.'
'My client's already told you what happened, Mr Sullivan,'
McFee repeated, though his enthusiasm seemed to have finally
hit the depths and I got the feeling that he'd be happy just to get
home to his long-term partner.
It was clear that none of the men in the room believed my
story, and not for the first time that day I began to get really
angry. When Sullivan asked me for the second or third time in
that accusing tone of his where I thought my wife was, adding
that I'd be helping both of us if \ told them, I finally snapped.
'Fuck this,' I said decisively. 'I've had enough. I've told you
everything I know, and it's blindingly obvious that you haven't
got any real, tangible evidence linking me to this crime. Also, my
wife didn't kill anyone. Full stop. I've known her more than ten
years, and I've never seen her violent once. She's a good-hearted

person from a good family who can't stand the sight of blood,
had absolutely nothing against Vanessa Blake, and has never
been in trouble with the police. Now, you're holding me on
suspicion of Vanessa's murder, right?'
It was Caplin who answered. 'We're questioning you in relation
to that, yes.'
'Well, on what evidence are you holding me? If I killed
Vanessa Blake, then why aren't my fingerprints on that
knife?'
'Because you wore gloves,' answered Sullivan in a way that
suggested this was an entirely stupid question.
'I'm assuming you've got CCTV footage of me from the
university. Am I wearing gloves in it?'
'They could have been in your pocket. You could have put
them on when you reached the scene.'
'But I didn't. I wasn't wearing gloves at all today. I haven't
worn a pair for months.' I was on a roll now, no longer intimidated
by the questions being flung at me, the anger at
the injustice of my situation still seething inside. 'So, if I wasn't
wearing gloves, and my fingerprints aren't on the murder
weapon, can you tell me on what evidence you're holding me?' I
turned towards McFee. 'Tell these men that I'm not saying
anything else until I know exactly why I'm being held. If the
reasons aren't good enough, I want to be released now.'
When I turned back in the direction of the two detectives, I
saw that Caplin was holding up a small resealable plastic bag.
'Do you recognize these?' he asked me. 'They were found near
the scene.'
I could see through the clear material that it was a pair
of black leather gloves. I looked more closely, but I didn't really
need to. I might not have worn them for the last couple of