True Witness (23 page)

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Authors: Jo Bannister

BOOK: True Witness
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It was impossible not to believe that he meant it. “All right. So what do you want?”
Cochrane nodded slowly, a little of the tension going out him now the strength of his position had been acknowledged. “First of all I want this door locked.”
“All right,” said Deacon again, expressionless, moving towards it. He got a couple more paces up the room before Cochrane stopped him.
“You stay where you are. Daniel, you're nearest.”
“They're security locks,” said Deacon. “You need to know what to do with them.”
“So tell him.”
Deacon did so. The man was too aware now of what he was doing. He'd have to wait for another chance, and hope there'd be one.
When the door was locked and he could put his back to it without fear of being surprised, Cochrane relaxed a little more. Enough to look properly at the people he'd come here to meet. He gestured them back against the wall and had them face him while he studied them.
When he came to George Ennis he blinked. “Good grief! You too?” Then he made a mistake. He looked at Deacon. “You must be pretty sure of yourself to want your old chief here. Of course, he was the boy's coach, wasn't he? Still, it was a nice thought, having him in at the kill. To coin a phrase.”
His eyes travelled on down the line. But seeing no one else he recognised he turned back to Daniel. “Now, three – possibly four – of the men in this room know who killed Chris Berry, and I know who two of them are. You do: you saw
him. And Mr Deacon does because he arrested him. Maybe he told Mr Ennis, maybe he didn't.
“And the other one who knows is the killer. So what we're going to do is this. If nobody's let me in on the secret in two minutes, I'm going kill Sergeant Cobbitt here. If I still don't know in another two minutes I'll kill Mr Deacon. At that point, Daniel, it'll be down to you. If you don't tell me what I want to know, I'll kill every man in this room.”
Right then a phone rang. Half the people in the room patted their pockets but Deacon, heart sinking, recognised the tone. He'd chosen it because it was the least cheery one available. He said, “Do you want me to answer it?”
“Who is it?”
He looked at the display. “Chief Superintendent Fuller.”
Cochrane barked a laugh. “Well, he's going to find out sometime. Maybe you should tell him what's going on.”
Some of the men who looked vaguely like George Ennis, and indeed Neil Cochrane, still hadn't worked it out. They listened intently to the one-sided conversation in the hope of picking up clues.
Deacon said, “I'm still in the long room. We've hit a snag.”
Then: “No, not exactly. Neil Cochrane's turned up. With a shotgun.”
Then: “I haven't asked. Would you like to talk to him, sir?” He held out the mobile with an enquiring expression but Cochrane shook his head. “No,” Deacon told the phone, “he's too busy pointing his gun at me. I'm guessing that
does
mean it's loaded.
“No, everyone's all right so far. Mr Cochrane's offering to blow my head off if I don't point our suspect out to him, but apart from that …
“Yes, sir, very witty. No, none of us is in a position to jump him. I think he's planning to keep it that way. No, I don't recommend forcing the door. In a confined space a shotgun can do a lot of damage.
“By all means, sir,” he said then. “And while you're whistling up a negotiator we'll just talk among ourselves.” He ended the call and observed judiciously to no one in particular: “Prat.”
Cochrane was nodding approval. “Good. Keep avoiding
the temptation to be a hero and you might all get home for breakfast. Well – nearly all.” He looked at Daniel. “I believe I asked you a question.”
Deacon knew what the response would be. He too had tried to get information out of Daniel Hood. He knew the man could not be bullied. Admittedly, Deacon hadn't had recourse to a double-barrelled shotgun, but he was afraid it wouldn't make any difference. Somehow he had to stop an armed and dangerous man, a man with a record of extreme brutality, from issuing an ultimatum that a quiet, gentle, stubborn man would die rather than obey.
There wasn't time for much subtlety. Daniel almost as much as Cochrane had to be steered away from the confrontation. Deacon cleared his throat noisily and said, “Mr Fuller wanted to know what you're doing here.”
He'd succeeded in gaining Cochrane's attention. The man looked at him as if he was mad. “Isn't that
obvious
?”
“Yes. Sorry: not making myself clear. I mean, how you come to be here now. How you knew that this was the time and the place to get the answers you want. Have you been watching us?”
Even in the grip of his quest Cochrane couldn't resist the opportunity to brag a little. “Not exactly. I've been watching him.” He pointed the strong jaw at Daniel. “Why do you think I let him go? Because you were going to need him to wind this business up. He couldn't tell me who he saw on the pier, but once you came up with a decent suspect he'd tell you. And what would you do then? – you'd put on an identity parade. If I stuck by him, sooner or later he was going to lead me to the man I was looking for.”
Daniel couldn't believe what he was hearing. “You've been following me? Since I got out of the hospital?”
“Longer than that,” chuckled Cochrane. “You haven't left my ken since I set you free. I watched you come round and wander off down the lane. I kept an eye on you in case you fell in a ditch and drowned. I was never so pleased to see a
bunch of police cars in my life – I thought I was going to have to baby-sit you all the way into Dimmock.
“I knew they'd take you to the hospital. I picked up the Land Rover and followed you down. I was no more than twenty yards from you all night – I sat in the waiting-room with a cup of coffee and nobody asked who I was waiting for. When that lanky foreign woman collected you I was a bit confused, but she didn't look like a police officer so I guessed you were going to stay with friends. I followed the taxi and saw where it dropped you. I put the Land Rover out of sight and found a spot I could watch from.”
Daniel was cold under his clothes. After all he'd taken a killer to his friend's home. “You watched the house all day?”
“All day,” nodded Cochrane, “and most of the night. You can get surprisingly comfortable in a shrubbery if you have to. A couple of times I slipped away for a bite to eat – it was a risk but a man's got to live – but you were still there when I got back. When you settled down for the night, so did I. Then in the early hours a police car turned up. I thought, This is it. They've got someone, I thought, they just need Danny boy to identify him.
“That was all there was to it, really,” he finished modestly. “I presented myself at the desk here, gave a false name and said I was needed for the line-up. The sergeant believed me. Why wouldn't he? – I look pretty much like all the rest. And he's night-shift, and I was here in the day before.”
Deacon regarded the man almost with admiration. It hadn't been difficult. It had required perseverance, and a little luck, but mostly it just required the will to do it. It needed someone prepared to devote twenty-four hours to the job for as long as it took. But then, what else had Neil Cochrane to do? Nothing that mattered to him more than being here right now.
And getting an answer to his question. Deacon's interruption dealt with, he tapped Daniel's shoulder with the muzzle of his gun. “If you've forgotten what it was I wanted
to know,” he rumbled, “I don't mind saying it just once more.”
Daniel hadn't forgotten. And he hadn't changed his mind about how to answer. He realised Deacon had been trying to buy him some time, was sorry he couldn't put it to better use. He felt to be all out of options. “I can't tell you who I saw at the pier.”
“You can't? Or you won't?”
Another man leaned cautiously forward. It was the bouncer again, and this time there was no question as to his motive. He wanted to help, all right: he wanted to help himself. “He recognised someone. He said so. Go on, tell him. Then we can get out of here.”
Daniel felt the ground shake beneath him.
Cochrane looked at him; and getting no response there, looked back at the bouncer. “Who did he recognise?”
The man shrugged. “He never said. But what he said there, that's a lie.”
Neil Cochrane looked at him with contempt. “That's not a lie, it's Daniel trying to do the right thing. Now, I may find that inconvenient, but you should know a brave man when you see one. So unless you've something more helpful to tell me … ?”
He should have quit while he had the chance. But the bouncer was a big man with a sense of his own importance, and he thought he wasn't being appreciated. He said churlishly, “I'm telling you he
knows –
”
The cauldron of Cochrane's anger vented a bubble of hot fury. Abruptly the muzzle of the gun clipped the man under the jaw and he staggered back, whining and clutching his face. “I
know
he knows. Shut up while I find out
what
he knows.”
Deacon had started forward again. But now Cochrane knew what he was doing. “Mr Deacon, you really don't want me to start pumping shots into these people. So keep still.”
After that he kept his eyes on the policeman and spoke to
Daniel. “I'm not playing games, sonny. I know you have the information I want.
You
know I'll get it if I have to hurt you quite badly.”
Daniel nodded jerkily. “I can't help that.”
Cochrane scowled. He was the one with the gun: this shouldn't have been so difficult. Then he remembered. “Is this what you meant? In the barn, when I asked what you'd do to stay alive and you said almost anything. Is this the exception?”
Daniel nodded minutely. “I said I wouldn't let you hurt anyone.”
Cochrane's hair-trigger temper fired again. “
Hurt
him? What do you think – I gave up my farm and my life there, and my only hope of making a new life somewhere else, for the chance to black his eye? It was all over. Nothing that happened in the last week was anything to do with me. But the man who killed the runner boy used me to hide behind. I spent ten years earning the right to a decent life again, and he trashed it. To take what I couldn't have any more and leave me to pay.
“I told you, Daniel, I can't do it again. I'm too old and too tired. I can't lie any more, and I can't do the time and look forward to being free when I'm eighty. But I can make him pay. I can make him regret using me. Hurt him? I'm going to kill the bastard.”
Daniel felt the tremors start. It was one thing saying it, another seeing it through. But he had to try. “No.”
“I can make you,” warned Cochrane.
“I know you'll try.”
“Sonny, you really don't want to make me angry!”
“I have no choice. I can't do as you ask.”
For a moment they seemed to have reached deadlock. Twice his age, Cochrane could still have beaten Daniel to a pulp without a weapon to his hand. But he couldn't do it while holding the gun, and if he put it down ten big men, two of them policemen, would jump on him.
He turned the gun on Deacon. “I'll kill him. Right now.”
Behind the thick lenses Daniel's eyes stretched. “Please …”
“You know what I want.”
“I can't!” His voice cracked. “I can't give you someone's life!”
Cochrane shrugged. “Then you're going to sacrifice a good man for the sake of a bad 'un. Either way you'll have a life on your conscience, only one of them deserves to die and the other don't.”
Misery twisted Daniel's face. His eyes begged. Cochrane shook his head. “Mr Deacon can't help you. He won't talk. He hasn't the right to. He's paid to stand up to mad bastards like me. But you're not. He believes in what he does, he won't save himself, but you can save him. You can save Mr Deacon and every man in this room except the one you know to be a murderer. Any way you look at it, Daniel, that has to be a good deal.”
Deep inside a tiny bit of Daniel's brain was riding the storm and still doing good work. He felt an answer starting to take shape. It was simple but hard – but not as hard as doing nothing. He reached for the door. “You won't hurt anyone if I'm not here to see it. There'd be no point. So I'm leaving now.”
Deacon watched in astonishment, respect and deep trepidation. His voice was a warning growl. “Daniel –”
“Get away from that door,” commanded Cochrane thickly. “Or I'll kill you where you stand.”
Daniel had his back to the gun. “Then you'll never know what I saw.”
Exasperation fermented in Cochrane's brain. “You know what you're saying, do you? That you'd give your life for a killer?”
“Not exactly.” Daniel sounded troubled, as if he was still working it out. “It's not really about anyone else. I can face dying. I don't want to die, but it doesn't terrify me. Not as much as living with everything that matters to me gone.
Honour. Integrity, self-respect. You can't take them by force, they have to be surrendered. If I do as you ask there'll be nothing left. If that sounds pretentious I'm sorry.”
No one thought it was pretentious. They were all bigger men than Daniel: now they found themselves wondering if they could have defended the things they held dear with the same courage. Perhaps they could, but they didn't think so.
“All right,” snarled Cochrane, “then go. But the first sound you hear will be Jack Deacon's innards hitting the wall.”
Daniel shuddered. “If I go, Mr Deacon's the only one who can help you. You won't kill him either.”
He still had his back to the farmer. They couldn't see one another's faces. Daniel's was white: despite his brave words he was waiting every moment for the impact of close-grouped shot that would tear him apart. His eyes were shut tight.
Cochrane's expression was pensive as he considered the logic of the situation. Reluctant as he was to admit it, Daniel had a point. “Oh well, in that case …”
Everyone knows a gun is a deadly weapon because of the charge it carries. What people forget is that, even unloaded, it's a steel club longer than a man's arm. Cochrane swung with all his strength and the heavy barrels smashed into Daniel's shoulder and cannoned him into the wall.
“ … Perhaps you'd better stay,” finished Cochrane mildly.
Teeth clenched, fists balled, Deacon was ready to take his chance. But Cochrane already had him covered. “Stay where you are, Mr Deacon.”
“He's hurt,” gritted Deacon.

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