The Wood Beyond (34 page)

His heart hardened. Guilty, she was playing hard to get. Innocent, well, she had nothing to fear, did she?

Cards-on-the-table time. She knew what they were, or she didn't. Either way, continued concealment was a waste of time.

He said, 'We think the hit-and-run might be just a cover-up, and Walker could have been attacked and left to die.'

Her reaction was perfect. Shock, incredulity, outrage, each perfectly proportioned, as first the fact then the implication of what he was saying hit her.

'You bastard!' she said. 'Oh you bastard!'

'Hang about,' he said in an injured tone. 'Second ago you were all philosophical, now all of a sudden I'm a bastard. What's changed?'

'Hit and run's one thing. Someone reports a Discovery near the scene, a number like mine, you've got to look into it. But this is cold-blooded murder you're talking about!'

'Attempted murder,' he reminded her gently. 'Walker can still open her eyes and put everything right.'

She didn't look like she found this a comfort, but then, he generously allowed, he doubted if he'd find it much of a comfort to be told that proving his innocence might depend on someone coming out of a coma.

She refilled her glass and emptied it immediately. She must have a pot-glazed gullet. Her eyes still said
Bastard!
but when she spoke her voice was controlled.

'Andy, there must be reasons why you're questioning me like this. Do I get to hear them?'

'Why not?' he said. 'Walker's Mark Shufflebottom's brother.'

'Who?'

Bad, he thought. Anyone in the animal rights movement had to know the name, and in any case, hadn't he mentioned it to her himself only a couple of days ago?

'Not the guard at the FG plant at Redcar?' she went on. 'Is that who you mean?'

Good recovery. He was firmly into his interrogation mode now. Be absolute for guilt, that was the only way.

That was what Wally Tallantire, his first CID boss, had taught him.
In court they're innocent till proved guilty, Andy,
he'd said.
In here
(tapping his head)
they're guilty till proved innocent.

'That's the one. Walker reckoned the only way she was going to find who killed her brother was to do it herself. That's why she joined your lot.'

'Because she thought we had something to do with it?' said Cap incredulously.

Very good. If this was acting, then it were Old Vic standard. Made you wonder about them yells she'd let out on the bed yesterday afternoon. He suddenly felt old and grubby.

'Not necessarily. She wanted an in and you were it.'

'Because she knew Ellie Pascoe and Ellie knew me?'

Slightly betrayed. Not too much, seeing there were more important issues on the agenda here. This really was a class act. If it was.

'That's it. And once in, she set about getting herself a name as a hard case and trying to make contacts with real extremists at meetings and demos.'

'I thought she was wrong for us from the start. Far too pushy.'

He believed her, but that didn't make her innocent. Cap Marvell's extremism would be the kind that required unquestioning obedience, not individual acts of derring-do.

She went on, 'So what happened, Andy, that got me from being Wendy's way in to being number one suspect?'

He said, 'Summat happened that night at Wanwood. When I first saw you, you were the one being all aggressive, Walker was meek and mild and cooperating like mad. I've read the TecSec statements. Seems like you were the one wanted to take the guards' heads off with your wire cutters. In fact it was Walker stopped you doing serious damage.'

'They said that?'

'Yeah. Not true?'

She shrugged and said, 'Not the way you put it. That one with the scar, he just stood there with a macho fancy-your-chances sneer on his face. I don't deny it would have been quite pleasant to wipe it off. But even without Wendy's interference, I'd have banged him in the goolies, not tried to split his skull.'

'You're all heart,' said Dalziel.

'I see it's been a mistake,' she replied. 'So the theory is that somehow I let it slip that I was the mad killer of Redcar and decided that Wendy had to be silenced before she could spread the word? It would make a lousy movie. I mean, first of all, I'd have had to find out what Wendy was really up to, wouldn't I? How did I manage that?'

'She said something that got you thinking.'

'Oh yes. And that was enough?'

'Enough to set you off checking her out a bit more thoroughly than you'd done before.'

'The next day, you mean? Well, I have an alibi for most of that if you recall, spending it as I did in the company of a pillar of the community ... oh shit, Andy. You think that's what I was doing with you? You think I opened my legs to get you to open your mouth? Oh shit.'

Her distress nearly got to him. He wished he had a drink, even the paint stripper. But this was no time to relent.

'You wanted to get me talking about her, I recall. And she'd just been to see you and you'd had a row. But you didn't dare try to get the truth out of her then and there 'cos you knew I might turn up any moment.'

She regarded him with amazement.

'You heard that?' she said. 'But you said nothing . . '

'Nothing to say,' he replied. 'Then, I just thought it were girls' talk

'And now it's all down to her suspecting I'm her brother's killer. And me suspecting that she's on to me.... so how am I supposed to have found out the truth about her? If you were eavesdropping, you know that nothing was said about Redcar and Mark Shufflebottom, nothing at all!'

Aggressive defence, often a sign that you were getting there. But also a natural reaction, he reminded himself. Reassured himself.

'That's true,' he admitted. 'You can't have been certain. Not by a long shot. You'd have needed to talk to her again. When you learned she was going to have a heart-to-heart with Ellie Pascoe, could be the alarm really started sounding.'

'I don't believe this,' she almost whispered. 'Andy, you're talking as if you're certain that - '

'Nay, lass, don't take on,' he said. 'It's just a way of putting things. I do it all the time. It's routine, this is all routine. I'm just covering myself, covering both of us. I've got to be thorough. Like the first time I came here, I asked where you were the dates of the Redcar raid and the first raid on Wanwood.'

'Yes, and I told you.'

'I know. Only now I need lots of detail of dates, times, witnesses. For the record.'

She rose and left the room returning a moment later with her diary. He smiled at her encouragingly. It was half sincere, half an act, and he couldn't tell the boundary line. Surely it was better to play the right bastard rather than continue with this hot/cold pressure?

She looked quite relaxed for a moment as she flicked through the pages of her diary. Then she looked up, eyes huge with bewilderment, and said, 'Andy, why are you making me do this? I know you say it's your job, it's just routine, but I still can't really believe that even for the sake of appearances you've got to act as if it were truly possible that I tried to kill Wendy Walker the other night. For God's sake, we were at the university party together.'

'You left early.'

'To watch the telly interview. I asked you to come with me.'

'You knew I wouldn't.'

'How the hell did I know that?'

He gave her a conspiratorial grin and said, 'It's easy done when you've had the practice.'

She said, 'You mean, I manipulated you?'

'Why not? You've a way with words. Like if you hung around outside till you saw Walker arrive, I doubt you'd have had any problem persuading her to get into that van of yours for a little chat to sort her doubts and difficulties out. Plenty of room for the bike too.'

He dropped the bike in casually. The bike was a bit of a puzzle. Walker had told Ellie she was coming to the party by bus and would like a lift home. If she did come on the bus, then Cap would have had to go back to her squat to pick up the bike. Questions had already been asked there with the kind of result to be expected from folk who trusted the police like they trusted politicians. The driver of the bus whose arrival most closely coincided with Cap's departure from the party thought he did recollect someone answering Wendy's description, but as further questioning elicited the judgment that all female students wore jeans, cagoules and trainers, and most of them were skinny and pale and undernourished, this was far from conclusive.

So he watched Cap carefully to see if she reacted at all to his assumption that Wendy had come to the party on her bike. She didn't.

She said, 'And having got her into the Discovery and realizing she knew my guilty secret, I'm supposed to have knocked her unconscious, then driven out along Ludd Lane where I staged an accident and left her in a ditch to drown?'

Drown. She said drown, not die. Had he talked to her about the stream in the ditch and the way Walker's waterproof had formed a dam and saved her from drowning? It was possible. There'd been no reason not to. He'd been deep into trust then. He recalled another bit of Wally's wisdom.
Trust no bugger save your own mam. And not till you've checked her record first.

He said, 'If you didn't do that, what did you do?'

'What I've told you, of course. I went straight home and poured myself a drink and sat and admired myself on television.'

'Any witnesses? You didn't stop off for petrol on the way home? Or pop out to buy a bottle of yon Mex ale or a packet of crisps?'

Here was her chance to trump his hidden ace before he even played it, to offer some explanation as to how ten minutes after the programme she'd allegedly rushed off to see had ended, he saw her coming from her garage and going into her unlit flat.

'No, Andy. I went straight home, settled down in front of the box, and that was it.' She spoke with a fervour that might almost have convinced him if he hadn't had the personal ocular proof that she was lying.

Part of him was tempted to challenge her straight away, but that was the part that wasn't a cop, and while not totally disenfranchised, it had certainly been a minority vote for longer than he could recall.

No, this was one you saved up for court, or at least for when you'd got her in an interview room with the tape running.

There was a double ring at the doorbell.

He said, 'That'll be for me. We'll need your garage and car keys.'

She looked at him sadly and said, 'Oh Andy. Isn't this where you say something about only obeying orders?'

'Nay, lass,' he said holding out his huge hand. 'Giving them. Now let's be having them keys.'

ix

'Before you switch that thing on, I thought we had a deal,' said Jimmy Howard.

'That was before we found this,' said Wield holding up the plastic bag containing the envelope from Howard's car. 'Press the switch, Shirley.'

Detective Constable Shirley Novello started the recorder and Wield recited the litany of date, time and those present.

'Do you recognize this envelope, Jimmy?' asked Wield.

'Well, I can see it's an envelope, but one envelope looks much like another, doesn't it?'

'Take a closer look,' said Wield.

'No, doesn't ring any bells.'

'We found it in your car, Jimmy.'

'Nothing to do with me. Where'd you find it?'

'Under the rubber matting by the driver's seat.'

'There you are then. Could have been there ever since I got the heap.'

'Don't give it a good clean every Sunday then?'

'Not really.'

'So, if it's nothing to do with you, there's no chance it'll have your prints on it?'

'Well, it might do now, seeing as I've just had a good look at it.'

'Don't get clever, Jimmy. For the tape, the envelope is in a tamper-proof evidence bag, sealed, with the time and date certified. There's something in the envelope, Jimmy. Some tablets. We've taken one out and sent it to the lab for analysis. Any idea what we'll find?'

'Aspirin?' said Howard. 'Look, I don't know what's in that envelope and I don't know how it got in my car, if that was where you found it. And I can't see how my fingerprints can be on it, unless they were on it before whoever planted it in my car planted it there. I mean, it looks like an ordinary white envelope like we've got lying around the office. I could handle any number of those each day.'

'And who do you think might have planted it?' asked Wield.

'Any number of people. When you've been a cop you make enemies, you must know that. Might even be you, Sergeant Wield.'

DC Novello looked at Wield anxiously. This was the first time she'd sat in on one of his interviews, in fact it was her first formal interview since her transfer to plain clothes. Everyone had told her she was mad to put her future in Fat Andy's gift. She'd appeared on her first day, face scrubbed, hair bound tightly back, wearing jeans and a baggy sweater. Dalziel had looked her up and down and said, 'You got no skirts or lipstick? Place is full of scruffy buggers already.' The others had laughed and settled down to treating her with varying degrees of caution and condescension till they saw what she was made of. Only Wield, so far as she could judge, simply accepted her as one of the team, no tags attached. This, plus his reputation as an implacable interviewer of suspects, gave her two good reasons for feeling anxious about the way things were going.

'Why do you say that, Jimmy?' asked Wield.

'Well you came to see me the other day, didn't you? Trying to pressure me to say bad things about my employers. When I wouldn't, you warned me to watch out, ex-cop with a drink-driving charge against his name should know better than to turn his back on his old mates. I told you to get stuffed and leave me alone.'

It was good, Wield had to admit. He'd underestimated Howard, forgetting that the guy had been a cop for a long time, and the kind of cop who knew how everything worked. The second he saw the envelope he knew that all deals were off. And, knowing that taped interviews could work both ways as evidence, he was busy getting his retaliation in first.