02 Blue Murder (7 page)

Sir
Duncan
, Hetheridge thought, squinting at
the small light as he pondered its meaning.
Have you really come out of retirement?

Chapter Six

D
etective Sergeant Paul Bhar returned to New Scotland Yard in a
state of agitation so intense, he fought hard to convince himself
it didn’t exist. First of all, he was a professional. Second, he
had been trained to put aside personal concerns and focus only on
the task at hand, especially in a murder case. Third, he’d promised
himself if this ever happened—and heaven knew there’d been a time
when he fantasized about it almost daily—he would respond as a
paragon of cold precision. Not get twitchy. Not feel paranoid. Not
spend every second of a rather brief late-night drive rehashing a
constellation of past mistakes. Yes, he’d sworn not to indulge in
any of those behaviors. Unfortunately, he was guilty of all
three.

“
Oi! Oi! Oi!” DCI Vic
Jackson was shouting at a group of recently processed young male
partygoers. “The longer you lot whinge and behave like wee crying
girls, the longer this process will take. Buck up, grow a pair
and—oi! Don’t sit there, son. Do you think an officer wants his
desk supporting your doublewide load?”

“
You can’t talk to me that
way! My taxes pay your salary,” the offending young man
cried.

“
Your sweet old mum’s taxes
pay my salary,” Jackson growled, hauling up the party guest by his
Che Guevara T-shirt. “Stand up straight and wait like a good little
boy or you get a slap, hey?”

Bhar choked back a laugh as the young man
did as instructed, at least temporarily cowed by DCI Jackson’s
slitted eyes and crimson cheeks. The man always looked one powdered
doughnut away from a massive coronary, especially when rousted out
of bed by the assistant commissioner. Judging by the fine white
dust in his whiskers, DCI Jackson had already indulged in his
personal drug of choice.

“
Speaking of getting a
slap,” Jackson said. “If it ain’t Captain Darkie. Wonder Quim’s got
three of the girls in a room. Think you can make yourself useful
and take three of these shivering poofs off my hands?”

“
Of course,” Bhar said, not
giving Jackson the satisfaction of visibly responding to the slur.
As far as DCI Jackson went, “Captain Darkie” was relatively mild.
When Bhar joined the Met, his first guv had occasionally amused
himself by reciting all the words he could think of that rhymed
with “wog.”

“
Right.” DCI Jackson
squinted as his tablet computer. Still openly suspicious of digital
aids, he tended to use them with excessive care, as if tapping the
wrong icon might unleash thermonuclear war. “Quinton Baylor. Jeremy
Bentham. Matthew Bice. Follow Detective Sergeant Bhar, he’ll
interview you together, then separately as the case may be
…”

Because of the sheer number of partygoers
due for process, Bhar and his trio had to wait in the hall until
one of the interview rooms freed up. Quinton Baylor, tall and
broad-shouldered with an athlete’s thick neck, seemed to look on
the whole experience as a bit of a laugh. He kept nudging Matthew
Bice, pointing to a group of girls waiting at the end of the hall
and whispering comments. Bice, also thick-necked and overlarge,
only nodded and chuckled. Both had hair so closely cropped, they
could have been mistaken for skinheads. Jeremy Bentham, only
average-sized and apparently not friends with either, kept his
hands in his pockets and his eyes on the floor.

“
Here we are,” Bhar said
when the room cleared. It was small, eight by eight, and
deliberately stark—nothing but plain white walls, a card table,
four folding chairs and a digital recording device. Jeremy Bentham
pulled out a chair, sat down, placed his hands on the table and
offered Bhar a quick, nervous glance. Had he been crying? Bhar
couldn’t be sure. All three young men had bloodshot eyes, as likely
a consequence of the pre-murder revelry as sadness over Clive
French or Trevor Parsons.

Matthew Bice shuffled up to the table,
glanced at Quinton Baylor—apparently permission from the alpha male
was needed to sit down—and then dropped in the chair. Quinton took
the seat beside Jeremy, elbowing him in the ribs and then
pretending surprise.

“
Sorry, mate! Don’t look so
scared. My family lawyer’s on the way. Should be here any second,
officer,” Quinton told Bhar. His tone held the casual menace of the
habitual bully.

“
Detective sergeant,” Bhar
corrected, grateful that he could proceed without a lawyer present,
at least for now. As quickly as possible he ran through the
preliminaries, switched on the digital recorder and launched
straight into the template for a first round of
interviews.

“
Did any of you witness the
demise of Trevor Parsons and/or Clive French?”

Jeremy and Matthew shook their heads.
Quinton grinned.

“
Mr. Baylor?”

“
Saw Trev right after he
bought it. Does that count?”

Matthew chuckled. Jeremy managed what looked
like a forced smile.

“
No, it does not.” Bhar
tried to sound as harsh as DCI Jackson. “Did any of you see someone
unusual on the Wardle premises? Someone who didn’t
belong?”

“
Oh, aye.”
Quinton grinned even bigger, revealing a gold incisor and two
golden molars in his upper jaw. “Little bugger’s name was
Clive French
.”

Matthew chuckled again.

“
Yes, thank you. Anyone
else?” Bhar asked, fully expecting the answer to be no. Instead,
Jeremy opened his mouth to speak. Before he made the first sound,
Bhar felt Matthew’s leg brush against his as the young man kicked
Jeremy beneath the table.

Bhar looked from face to face. “Something
the matter?”

Matthew’s face went blank. This was no
measure of cunning on his part; blank was his natural state. Jeremy
shrugged.

“
Never mind.” He kept his
head down, eyes fixed on the scarred tabletop. It was the worst
impression of innocence Bhar had ever seen.

“
Mr. Bentham. Did you see
someone unusual on the Wardle premises? Two men are dead. This
information could be vital.”

Jeremy lifted his head. “Well, er …” He gave
Quinton a weak smile. “What with the murders … the police … it’s
all a bit confusing, isn’t it?”

Quinton’s small brown eyes grew even
smaller. “Not confused about nothing,” he growled, dropping into a
fake Cockney, or “Mockney,” accent that probably served well to
intimidate other rich young uni kids on the rugby field. Matthew
and Jeremy looked suitably terrified. Bhar, who’d spent his teenage
years ducking and running from actual football hooligans, choked
back a laugh.

“
What about you, Mr. Bice?”
Bhar asked Matthew. “What made you kick Mr. Bentham under the
table?”

Matthew’s innate stupidity buzzed around him
like a force field. “Don’t know nothing,” he muttered.

Bhar sighed. At this point DCI Jackson would
pound the tabletop with his fist, ranting and raving until the
prominent vein in his forehead looked ready to burst. Bhar knew he
wasn’t made for such theatrics. The last time he’d tried it, the
interviewees had laughed in his face.

“
All right. Let’s go back to
basics. Clive French. Show of hands — who here was friends with
him?”

Matthew, Jeremy and Quinton remained
still.

“
Trevor Parker. Same
question.”

Matthew and Quinton kept their arms folded.
Jeremy raised a hesitant hand, looking like he expected one of the
other young men to slap it down.

“
Close friends?” Bhar asked
Jeremy.

“
No. But he was dating
Emmeline, and I’ve known Em for a while. That’s all.” Jeremy
shrugged.

Quinton rolled his eyes. Matthew
chuckled.

“
Were you on the rugby team
with Mr. Parker?” Bhar asked the athletes.

“
He was
our captain,” Matthew said. “
Was
.” He looked at Quinton, clearly
expecting an answering chuckle, but got none in return. It seemed
the obligation to laugh at jokes was a one-way
street.

“
Were you ever at odds with
Mr. Parker?” Bhar asked Quinton.

“
Every bleeding day of the
week. He was a right git.” Quinton flashed those golden teeth
again.

“
Ever feel like harming
him?”

“
Every one of us on the team
did at one time or another. Doesn’t mean we whacked him at a party,
or Clive either. Some nutter broke in and did them. Serial killer.
Google it, mate.”

Matthew chuckled again. Jeremy offered the
same weak, slightly nauseated smile.

“
True,” Bhar said calmly.
“Mind you, I’ve investigated a fair few murders in my time. You
three are extraordinarily calm to have come fresh from the scene.
Especially murders that might have been committed at random. That
theory suggests that but for the grace of God, any one of you could
have been lying dead beside Mr. Parsons and Mr. French.”

He checked for even a flicker of reaction.
None. Matthew and Quinton just sat there, exuding self-confidence.
Jeremy continued to look at the table. Either they had already
processed the knowledge they could have been victims, or they were
in denial, or none of them had ever been afraid at all.

But which?
Bhar wondered. Matthew seemed useless to focus on;
not only was he transparently thick, he was utterly cowed by
Quinton. And whatever Quinton lacked in brains, he more than made
up for in testosterone. That left Jeremy.

“
Did you ever feel afraid,
Mr. Bentham?” Bhar asked, words staccato, stabbing Jeremy with the
force of his gaze. As he hoped, the young man blinked.

“
No. I mean — it all
happened so fast. Trevor was dead, but it didn’t seem real. Clive
was dead in the back garden, that’s what they told me, but I never
saw him. Just Kyla Sloane and—” Jeremy stopped, eyes widening. Bhar
pounced.

“
Who? Who else was in the
back garden?”

“
An older man.” Jeremy
sighed. “Thirty-five, maybe even forty. Someone’s dad, I thought. I
saw him in the back garden near Kyla. But by the time the police
arrived, he was gone.”

“
You saw Em’s lawyer, that’s
all,” Quinton snorted. “Elephant, or whatever his name
is.”

“
No, Mr. Oliphant got there
later.” Jeremy’s gaze slid away from Bhar’s, focusing on his
clasped hands. “This guy was taller.”

“
Any other details you can
think of?” Bhar asked. “What sort of clothes did the man
wear?”

“
He was too far away. A
coat, I think.”

“
There you have it. Bloke in
a coat,” Quinton scoffed. “Easy to find.”

“
Jeremy. To the best of your
recollection, can you tell me when you saw this man outside the
Wardle house?”

Jeremy looked up. His eyes were more
bloodshot than ever — he looked ready to cry right then. “Trev was
dead. Everyone was panicking. Trying to get themselves together
before the cops arrived. I looked out and saw Kyla and a man in the
back garden. Maybe two minutes after Trev came down the stairs.
Maybe a little longer.”

“
I heard witnesses lie to
the police to get attention.” Quinton poked a finger in the center
of Jeremy’s chest. “I heard they make up all sorts of lies to
get—”

There was a sharp rap on the door. Before
Bhar could respond, an administrative assistant opened it, allowing
a white-haired man entry. The man carried a leather briefcase and
wore an Armani suit.

“
I am William Poul, counsel
for Mr. Quinton Baylor,” the lawyer announced in withering tones,
like an aristocrat announcing himself. “I’ll need time to speak
with my client before this interview continues.”

“
Fine,” Bhar sighed, and
left them to it.

Chapter Seven

“
D
eepal!”

Bhar twitched, momentarily wrenched from
sleep. But he was an expert in resisting unwanted external stimuli,
especially when at rest, and immediately sank into slumber
again.

“
Deepal!”

A series of rapid metallic clicks followed —
his bedroom doorknob being tried with enough force to suggest a
house fire or home invasion.

“
Deepal, I know you can hear
me!”

Jolted back to consciousness, Bhar threw
aside his blanket and consulted the bedside clock. 6:02 a.m. He’d
been asleep for barely three hours. Had his mother, normally
cognizant of everything that transpired in her home — even from the
depths of her bedroom, snug under her bloody covers in the middle
of the bloody night — failed to notice he’d worked twenty-one hours
straight?

Flopping down again, Bhar turned his back on
the clock, molding his pillow over his ears.

His mobile shrilled from the nightstand.
Groaning, Bhar sat up. Seizing the phone, he considered hurling it
against the wall, then thought better of it. Heaven help the
detective who ignored a call while working a high-profile murder
case.

“
This is Bhar,” he
muttered.

“
Deepal, I am not playing
with you. Come downstairs at once.”

Giving a mighty, strangled groan — the sound
of defeat, not defiance — Bhar threw himself out of bed, bare feet
thudding hard enough against the wooden floor to rattle the light
fixtures over his mother’s head. Pulling on his dressing gown, he
yanked the bedroom door open with such force, the knob slammed into
the opposite wall. A small crater in the plaster deepened
incrementally, as it had been doing for years.