Slice (16 page)

SADDLER STREET POLICE
station was like a mausoleum when Phil Gilham pushed through the security door from the foyer, curtly acknowledging the station duty officer who had let him in. Most of the night shift were already out on patrol and the local area control room, with its team of civilian operators, was a sealed unit, inaccessible to all save authorized communication staff.

He gave a thin smile as he made for the ornate Victorian staircase. Funny how what should have been the safest place in town had now assumed such a menacing brooding atmosphere. Even the bobbies themselves felt uneasy and vulnerable. The suspicion that one of their own colleagues was behind the spate of murders had had an unsettling effect on everyone, creating a distrust that was working its way through station morale like a destructive worm. Every patch of shadow in the dimly lit corridors and offices had become a threat, every creak and groan of the antiquated building as it stretched its weary sinews something sinister and every member of staff a potential assassin. Saddler Street was a police station teetering on the very edge and it only needed a gentle push to send it right over.

Pausing at the foot of the staircase and peering up towards the first floor landing, still cloaked in heavy darkness, he had to empathize with his colleagues. Even without the Slicer’s influence, the place was about as creepy as any building could get and the antiquated lighting system did not help matters either. He reached for the switch and flicked it twice before anything happened. Then it was a case of watching and waiting as the landing globe reluctantly came on, dipped and steadied into a pale watery glow, before he was able to begin his ascent, his leather-soled shoes ringing on the naked stone.

The first floor accommodated the offices of the superintendent, DCI and uniformed chief inspector, plus the area’s admin staff, and through the glass-panelled door off the landing he saw that, as to be expected at this time of the night, everything was in darkness. But, hand on the banister rail leading to the top floor, he stopped dead, conscious of the sound of heavy footsteps directly above his head. He frowned. Who the devil could be wandering about on the top floor? There was only a conference room and the police club – now the incident room – on that level and there was no reason for anyone to be up there at such a late hour.

As with the floor below, all the lights on the top floor had been turned off and he opened the landing’s glass-panelled door cautiously, freezing in the long corridor on the other side to listen. More noises from his left (the incident room) and the faint glow of a light inside, which was abruptly extinguished. Then further heavy footsteps, muffled by carpet at first, but sharper on contact with the vinyl floor of the corridor. His hand fumbled for the light switch, but he was too late and the heavy thickset man cannoned into him just as the corridor illuminated.

‘Sorry, guv,’ Ben Morrison mumbled. ‘Didn’t see you there.’

Gilham stared at his number two in astonishment. ‘Where the devil have you been?’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you for at least two hours.’

‘Yeah,’ Morrison admitted. ‘Just checked me mobile and got your message about Derringer. Had an accident, see.’ He pulled back the sleeve of his leather jacket to reveal a heavily bandaged hand and forearm. ‘Ran over a bloody cat on me way home for some nosh. Soddin’ thing clawed me hand when I went back to check it.’

‘So why didn’t you let me know?’

Morrison shrugged. ‘Couldn’t use me mobile in Casualty – X-rays and all that – and public phone out of order.’

Gilham looked unconvinced. ‘So what are you doing up here at this time of night?’

Morrison frowned. ‘What
is
all this, guv – third degree? Came up to see you, didn’t I? Thought you’d be back and wanted to apologize.’

‘So why didn’t you check with the SDO first to see if I’d returned?’

Anger burned suddenly in the DI’s dark eyes. ‘Dunno what you’re on about. Look, time I went home, unless you’ve any objections. Got a shot at hospital and don’t feel so good.’

‘Fine. I’ll talk to you again in the morning.’

Morrison slammed the exit door against the wall as he slouched for the stairs. ‘Look forward to it,’ he growled. ‘
If
I decide to come in.’

For a few moments Gilham stood behind the glass panel of the door and watched him go, his brows puckered in thought and a nasty little bug crawling around inside his head. Then abruptly he turned away from the door and headed off along the corridor in the opposite direction.

The incident room was in darkness, the computer monitors switched off, but green and red lights glowed everywhere and the hum of quietly operating circuits competed with the clatter of an activated fax machine. He glanced at the messages in the fax tray, but it was all routine stuff – mainly press enquiries that should have been directed to the headquarters press office and responses to enquiries made to other police forces. Despite Morrison’s very plausible story about the accident and the reason he had given for returning to the police station, doubts still crowded Gilham’s mind and he couldn’t help asking himself the question: what on earth had the DI been doing in the blacked-out incident room?

The door to the small SIO’s office was shut, but it was not locked. He turned on the light inside and scanned the room. Everything appeared to be more or less as he had left it, though a couple of the drawers in the desk were half-open and the catch on the flap of the briefcase he had left in the corner was not engaged. His policeman’s nose twitched. What the hell had Morrison been looking for? And what had prompted him to start looking in the first place? Gilham felt uneasy and vulnerable, but, though he did not realize it at that moment, his night of surprises was far from over.

It was cold in the big four-by-four. The engine had only been off for around an hour, but the Honda’s polished tin was no barrier to the chill rising from the frozen ground as Fulton climbed behind the wheel. He had decided to borrow Abbey’s Honda again as it was less likely to attract the attention of any lurking reporters than his familiar battered Volvo, but he knew he was taking one hell of a risk. If he were to be pulled over for a routine check by a police patrol, he would have quite a bit of explaining to do – especially as Abbey was missing and he was already suspected of murdering his own wife. But what choice did he have? If he used the Volvo, he was almost certain to end up with an unwelcome press entourage all the way to Saddler Street police station and staying at home with the whisky bottle was certainly not an option.

As it was, he got to Saddler Street without incident. He parked the Honda in the entrance to a nearby industrial estate, and to his surprise access to the station was just as easy. The officer manning the front desk obviously hadn’t read the local newspapers or force email circulations that referred to his suspension and barred him from police premises, for he let him in with hardly a glance in his direction. Though the lapse was to Fulton’s benefit, the big man shook his head in disbelief as he stomped along the corridor towards the stairs. Talk about communication.

He forgot all about the negligent bobby as he panted his way to the top floor, however, for he had more important things to worry about. In fact, his mind was so crowded with doubts and questions that he could hardly think straight. Although it was almost impossible to believe that someone like Phil Gilham – a man he had worked with on so many cases in the past – could be a cold, sadistic killer, he was unable to come up with any rational explanation as to how his former DCI could have got hold of Lyall’s stolen mobile unless he was implicated in the murders in some way. Derringer had already suggested that there might be more than just the psycho involved in the serial killings; maybe he had been right after all and Phil Gilham was the accomplice?

But if Gilham were implicated, certain things just did not add up. For example, why would he deliberately indicate he was using Lyall’s mobile when he rang earlier, and then not only fail to take advantage of the number withheld facility, but actually invite his old boss to phone him on the number later the same night? And why would he go to all the trouble of masking his voice in the original phone call and yet make no attempt to do so when Fulton rang him back? It was time for some answers and Fulton was in exactly the right mood to demand them.

Gilham was still in the SIO’s office, slouched behind the desk, when he lumbered through the half-open doorway. The former DCI’s face was pale and drawn, the stress cruelly evident in his expression, and Fulton couldn’t help noticing, with a sense of malicious satisfaction, the uncombed hair and rumpled state of the usually immaculate suit.

‘How the devil did
you
manage to get in?’ Gilham demanded, his eyes widening as he instinctively straightened in the chair.

Fulton towered over him. ‘Never mind that,’ he snarled. ‘What are you doing with Lyall’s mobile?’

Gilham picked up the silver-grey telephone from his desk, absently turning it over to reveal the Dyno-tape label, ‘H B Lyall’, on the back. ‘So it was you who rang me just now,’ he breathed. ‘What are you playing at, Jack?’

Fulton snorted. ‘You’re the one who should be coming up with the explanations, Phil,’ he said. ‘McGuigan told us that the psycho was using Lyall’s phone, remember? So how come you’ve got it now?’

Gilham gave a short nervous laugh. ‘Oh, hang on a minute, Jack, you’re away with the fairies. Believe it or not, this phone was in the top drawer of my desk. I only discovered it when it started ringing.’

‘How did it get in your drawer – fly in?’

Gilham’s face hardened. ‘Someone must have planted it there while the office was empty – and I’m pretty sure I know who that someone was.’

Fulton deposited his massive frame on the edge of the desk. ‘Oh? And who’s that?’

Gilham looked up at him. ‘Ben Morrison,’ he said. ‘He was buggering about up here when I came back in.’

‘You’re saying he was actually in this office?’

Gilham pushed the chair away from the desk and stood up. ‘I can’t say that, but he had just come out of the incident room when I turned up and he looked pretty guilty, I can tell you.’

‘But why would he go to all the trouble of trying to stitch you up?’

‘He probably thought he needed to divert attention away from himself.’

‘For what reason? As far as I know, there has never been any suggestion of him being a suspect.’

‘There is now.’ Gilham quickly told him about Derringer’s murder, the excuse Morrison had made about the injured cat and the significance of his injured hand in relation to the bloodstained pyracantha bush at the hospital.

Fulton was tempted to say that he had first-hand knowledge of Derringer’s death, but decided against it, instead exhibiting shock at the news and making the right sort of convincing noises as he lit up a cigarette to cover any visible signs of guilt in his expression.

‘We always said it was someone on or close to the team, didn’t we, Jack?’ Gilham continued, turning to stare out of the window with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. ‘Someone who knew everything that was happening and could wander in and out of the nick at any time of the day and night without attracting suspicion. Who better than Ben Morrison?’

The big man shrugged. ‘And who better than you, Phil?’ he said, back on the attack. ‘Maybe Ben’s explanation about the cat clawing his hand is legit – and after all, you
are
the one actually in possession of Lyall’s phone.’

Gilham swung back into the room and stared at him in astonishment. ‘Oh come on, Jack, you can’t really think I’m the killer surely? I mean, look at it logically. If I
were
, I would hardly leave the most incriminating bit of evidence of all in my drawer and answer the first call that came in on it. I’m not totally stupid, you know.’

‘Nor is Ben Morrison, but someone put the mobile there.’

‘Well, it wasn’t me and, on the subject of likely suspects, you forget that I wasn’t even here when Lyall was killed. I was on my way back from Jamaica with my partner, Helen. I didn’t land at Heathrow until after Lyall’s body had been discovered.’

The suspicion in Fulton’s eyes did not diminish. ‘Cast-iron alibi, you reckon then, do you?’ he said.

‘It counts me out as a damned suspect, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Does it? Well, it may interest you to know that, following my suspension, I made a few enquiries about your little holiday trip.’

‘You did what?’

‘And my contact at Heathrow Airport was very helpful indeed. In fact, she told me there was no record of a Philip Gilham on the passenger manifest for the fourth of October – the night Lyall was killed – but there
was
a Philip Gilham listed for the night before, which means you were actually home around twenty-four hours before the old boy’s estimated time of death.’

Gilham had paled significantly and was now gnawing at his bottom lip. ‘All right,’ he said eventually, ‘I’ll admit I was home a day earlier than I led you to believe, but certainly not to slit a retired judge’s throat.’ He took a deep breath and turned back to the window to hide his embarrassment. ‘Truth is, Jack, I’ve been over the side for a couple of months now – an old university girlfriend of mine I dated in my final year. I – I told Helen that I was due back at work the morning after we returned from Jamaica and would be away overnight on a crime conference in the Smoke, but actually I was with – with my ex-girlfriend at her flat.’

‘Nice to know integrity still means something.’

Gilham winced at the barb and turned to face him again. ‘OK, so I’m not proud of myself,’ he admitted, ‘but the important thing is that I can prove I was nowhere near Lyall the night he died – I was with the lady in question – and if anyone wants that fact verified, I am fully prepared to give them her details so that they can check with her personally.’

‘Even if that means destroying your long-term relationship with Helen?’

‘Better that than being in the frame for multiple murder – and anyway, I would hope that any enquiry would be discreet.’