The Enemy Within (7 page)

Listening to his heart trying to burst out of his chest, Williamson took a couple of deep breaths and tried to clear his head. Think!

‘She was murdered.’

Wondering if it made him look guilty, Williamson took another deep breath. ‘I know,’ he said finally, ‘I read about it in the
Gazette.’

Holt clasped his hands together, as if in prayer. ‘You killed her,’ he said quietly.

Williamson shook his head. ‘I didn’t even know her.’

‘That’s a lie, Ian.’ Holt shook his head sadly. ‘We know you met her several times. She supported the strike, like you. When some scab put a brick through her window, you went round to help clean up.’

‘So if I helped her, why would I kill her?’ Williamson demanded.

‘We have witnesses.’

‘What witnesses?’

‘Look,’ he said gently, giving it the father confessor routine, ‘this is a very clear-cut case. You will get a Legal Aid lawyer in the morning. Once you are processed, things will move very quickly. She was a little old lady. You sexually assaulted her.’

‘No—’

Holt held up a hand. ‘The machinery will not stop. They’re going to throw the book at you. We just wanted to have this little chat with you first to see if we can make things easier. What’s happened can’t be undone but we can sort things out quickly. Mrs Slater didn’t have any family, so, frankly, the Director of Public Prosecutions will be happy to do a deal.’

Stunned, Williamson folded his arms. His eyes lost their focus and his bottom lip started to tremble. Then he started to cry.

That’s taken the wind out of your sails, the MI5 man thought cheerily.

‘So,’ Holt continued, ‘if there’s anything you want to tell us now, that would be the sensible thing to do. It will save everyone a lot of time and effort. We will make sure that the DPP take into account that you have cooperated fully and it will count heavily in your favour when it comes to sentencing.’

Leaning against the doorframe, Palmer watched the suspect drop his head in his hands and begin blubbing like a baby. The enemy within, he mused, what a total shower. With a bit of luck, this shabby provincial affair would be wrapped up in the next twenty-four hours. Then he could get back to London, hopefully never to return to this utter hell hole.

The day shift was safely inside and the forces of law and order could claim another victory. Carlyle glanced at his watch. They had been standing on this patch of waste ground for almost three hours now, eyeing the hundred or so flying pickets two hundred yards away, on the other side of no man’s land. It was a blisteringly hot day and, so far, no one had summoned up the energy for a ruck. The boredom was driving him mad.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Charlie Ross approaching, striding down the thin blue line, like an emperor inspecting his troops.

Standing to his right, Dom let out a groan. ‘Oh great,’ he complained. ‘That’s just what we need, another pep talk from the pintsized Scottish psycho.’

‘The old git is never happy unless we have a full-scale scrap,’ Carlyle mused, gesturing towards the pickets. ‘He’ll be scheming about how to wind up those buggers over there so we can claim they started a fight and go in, truncheons flailing.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Dom kicked at a stone lying on the ground, sending it flying a couple of yards through the dust in the sergeant’s direction.

Ross watched the stone arrive at his feet and looked up at Dom. ‘I hope you’re not waiting for Arsenal to call, son.’

‘I’m a West Ham man,’ Dom sniffed.

‘I hear that they’re desperate,’ the sergeant cackled, walking in front of the two constables, ‘but even so, I don’t think they’ll be in for you.’

‘Even if they were, I’d say “no”.’ Dom gestured across the battlefield. ‘Professional football could never be as much fun as this.’

Charlie nodded solemnly.

You probably believe it, Carlyle thought, wiping a bead of sweat from under the peak of his helmet.

Taking a step forward, Dom lowered his voice. ‘I hear that they’ve found the bloke that killed that woman.’ He gestured over his shoulder, towards the woods where Beatrice Slater’s body had been found.

‘I understand that bloke’s been charged,’ Charlie mumbled, not keen to be talking about it. ‘But that’s nothing to do with us.’

‘It’s still a result,’ Dom said equably.

‘Like I said, son,’ Charlie said grimly, ‘it’s not our problem. We did the locals a quick favour, that’s all. Job done. Forget about it.’

Quick? Carlyle harrumphed. That’s very easy for you to say; you weren’t the one who was stuck with the body all bloody night.

A cheer went up and the three of them looked around. A longhaired striker had sprinted across no-man’s land and smacked an unsuspecting officer round the back of the head, knocking off his helmet. Scooping the helmet out of the dirt, the miner plonked it on his head and began sprinting back towards his own lines. Red-faced and panting, the officer set off in pursuit, spurred on by a rage of abusive catcalls and hand gestures from his colleagues. Unable to close down his quarry, the officer made a despairing attempt at a rugby tackle. As he landed face down in the dust the cheers reached a crescendo. Meanwhile, the thief reached the relative safety of his own lines, tossing his prize high into the air.

‘Unlucky,’ Dom grinned. ‘He should have caught the guy though.’

‘Who was it?’ Carlyle asked.

‘Who do you think?’ Charlie Ross grunted. ‘Only our good friend Trevor bloody Miller.’

‘You’re kidding,’ the two young constables laughed in unison.

The sergeant shook his head sadly. ‘Nah, it’s him. It’s not the first time, either.’ He pointed towards those enemy lines. ‘Those buggers are like lions preying on buffalo . . .’

Dom gave Carlyle a quizzical look. Lions? It was the first time they had ever heard the old sod refer to the other side in anything other than the most disparaging terms. Was he going soft? Maybe it was the heat.

‘They can sense the weakest member of the herd and hunt them down.’

‘That’s Trevor,’ Carlyle laughed.

‘Yeah,’ Dom chimed in, ‘the runt of the litter.’

Back at RAF Syerston, the two constables dumped their gear and headed straight for the canteen. Sitting at trestle tables thirty feet long, heads down, they worked their way steadily through the evening meal – boiled beef, potatoes and green beans, followed by jam sponge with custard – in exhausted silence, encased in the background noise of three hundred other coppers doing the same.

After eating, they took their coffee outside into the warm evening air. Carlyle followed Dom to a quiet spot near the kitchens, where he could roll a joint in peace.

‘Time for a smoke.’ Dropping his knapsack onto the concrete, Dom plonked himself down on an upturned plastic crate.

‘Mm.’

‘And maybe do a little bit of business.’

‘You’re gonna get caught, you know,’ Carlyle grumbled, looking round for another crate.

‘You’re such a bloody pessimist, Johnny boy.’

‘I’m a copper.’ After some searching, Carlyle found what he was looking for. ‘So are you, for that matter.’ Dropping the crate onto the tarmac, he sat down. ‘You’ll end up getting the sack.’

‘Nah,’ Dom shook his head, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘I’m telling you.’

‘Consider me told,’ Dom grinned.

‘Just saying.’

‘I know, I know.’ Rummaging around in his bag, Dom pulled out a copy of the
Daily Mirror
and offered it to his mate. ‘Here you go.’

‘Thanks.’ Carlyle took the paper and turned to the back page.

‘Football season’s over,’ Dom observed. ‘It’s only minority interest crap like cricket and golf for the next couple of months.’

‘Yeah, but I still like to start at the back. Force of habit.’

‘Check out the story about the old girl in the woods. Page seven, I think.’ Sticking his hand back in the bag, Dom pulled out a packet of Rizla Blue King Size, a packet of Drum rolling tobacco and a small, transparent plastic bag containing what looked like a small cube of treacle fudge. ‘Ah,’ Dom’s smile grew wider. ‘This is the highlight of the day. Not that that is saying much at the moment.’

‘No, I suppose not.’ Carlyle watched his mate begin to construct the joint and then started rummaging through the newspaper until he found the story. ‘Here we go. MAN ARRESTED IN SPINSTER MURDER CASE. It’s page eight, actually.’

‘Whatever,’ Dom grunted, sprinkling tobacco onto the paper.

Carlyle scanned the half-page article, which told of how Ian Williamson, a twenty-two-year-old unemployed man, described as ‘a well-known figure among strikers in South Yorkshire’ had been charged with the murder of Beatrice Slater. Next to the piece was a picture of a smiling Slater in her garden. Looking like everyone’s favourite granny, she was holding up a freshly cut rose and smiling for the camera.

‘He was the guy they arrested outside the chippy,’ Dom explained, crumbling a little of the Moroccan black between his thumb and forefinger and adding it to the tobacco. ‘Just as you were about to do a runner.’

‘I wasn’t going to do a runner,’ Carlyle snapped.

‘No?’ Dom sniffed. ‘My mistake.’

‘Do you think that he did it?’ Carlyle asked, moving the conversation quickly along.

‘Dunno,’ said Dom, running his tongue along the edge of the cigarette paper.

Taking a mouthful of his coffee, Carlyle watched as Dom twisted one end closed and stuck the other end in his mouth before returning his attention to the newspaper. ‘It says here, “Mrs Slater was a controversial local figure, an outspoken critic of the Falklands war, as well as the government’s handling of the miners’ strike. Some have suggested that the security services may have been involved in her death after she claimed to have leaked documents that showed the police were deliberately targeting union leaders and their families.”’

‘Who knows?’ Dom shrugged. Pulling a packet of matches from the pocket of his jacket, he lit the joint. Puffing away happily, he inhaled deeply before sending a lazy stream of smoke up into the air. ‘Anyway, why wouldn’t the police deliberately target union leaders and their families? It’s fucking anarchy up here.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Give me Green Street any time. I’d rather take my chances with the Inter City Firm on the rampage.’

Carlyle gave a sympathetic cluck. Dom was a West Ham fan, but he had little time for the football club’s hardcore hooligans. Carlyle, being a Fulham fan, didn’t have such problems to deal with. Craven Cottage was a far more sedate sporting venue than Upton Park.

‘At least you know where you stand with your common or garden thug. Even when the bloody Headhunters are steaming through, breaking heads, you can see what’s coming and get out of the way.’

‘Yeah,’ Carlyle nodded. One of the things the pair of them could bond over was a shared dislike of Chelsea and their animal fans.

‘But this . . . All this cloak and dagger bullshit does my head in. It’s like a bunch of little kids running around playing games, pretending to be James fucking Bond.’

‘Would MI5 really get involved in something like this?’ Carlyle asked.

‘Why not?’ Dom shrugged. ‘If you think about it, arguably it’s the kind of thing they’re supposed to do; the kind of thing we bloody pay them to do.’

‘The young bloke in the woods . . .’

‘Was he a spook?’ Dom offered up the joint. ‘Maybe.’

Carlyle shook his head. Dope wasn’t his thing; it made him feel thick-headed and nauseous.

‘Suit yourself.’

‘But what’s the point of spying on a woman like that?’

‘The point is,’ Dom continued, taking another toke, ‘the only people who actually know who killed the old woman are the woman herself, who is dead . . .’

‘Obviously,’ Carlyle interjected.

‘Yes, obviously dead, seeing she was murdered. Her and the bloke who did it. Unless Uncle Charlie’s good chum Inspector Holt gets a confession from this guy,’ he gestured towards the newspaper, ‘which I very much doubt, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever know the truth. Get used to it. This is what the next forty years of our lives is set to be like: either banging someone up without knowing for sure that they did it, or knowing they did it but not being able to bang them up. It’ll drive you mad if you think about it too much.’

Carlyle thought about that for a moment. ‘Why?’ he asked finally.

Dom frowned. ‘Why what?’

‘Why will Holt not be able to get a confession?’

‘Because,’ said Dom, waving the joint airily above his head, ‘only an idiot would confess.’

‘Maybe he is an idiot.’

‘Maybe he is, but let’s assume not. If he was an idiot, he would either have been caught in flagrante . . .’

‘Urgh!’ Carlyle made a face. He didn’t want to think about that.

‘Or he would have confessed already. If I was this guy . . .’

‘Ian Williamson,’ Carlyle reminded him.

‘If I was this guy Williamson, and I had done it, I would sit tight and wait to see if they could prove it. Common sense really. Even better, in this case he can start shouting about MI5 and let the conspiracy theorists argue he’s being framed.’

‘It won’t stop him going down though, will it?’

‘Stranger things have happened. Anyway, from Mr Williamson’s point of view, what’s to lose?’

‘Won’t he get a shorter sentence if he ’fesses up?’

‘For God’s sake, John, sometimes I worry about you. Do you really think some guy who shags a granny and kills her – or vice versa – is going to get anything other than the book thrown at him?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Can you imagine, if the bloke gets convicted then walks out of prison in five years’ time? The papers would go crazy.’

‘The papers are always going crazy about something.’

‘Yeah, but you know what I mean.’

‘What if he didn’t do it?’

‘Shit happens, my friend,’ Dom shrugged. ‘Shit happens.’

The combination of the passive smoke from Dom’s joint and the residual warmth of the sun was beginning to make Carlyle feel a little woozy. ‘That’s very . . . philosophical,’ he mumbled.

‘Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ Dom mused. ‘It happens. The trick is just to make sure that it never happens to you.’ He sighed. ‘Justice is a lottery. Even in this country. And, believe me, this country is as good as it gets.’