Weekend in Weighton Final Amazon version 12-12-12 (33 page)

Bob went on regardless. ‘We weren’t just friends. We were like brothers. We looked out for each other, covered each other. We saw things the same way, did everything by the book. Everyone knew what we stood for. We were straight coppers.’

‘What changed?’

‘We got older, got into debt. Saw younger blokes on the take, flashin’ the cash. We got tired. Worn down by the system.’

‘Maybe you – not Dad.’

‘Both of us,’ he said emphatically. ‘When I was promoted to Desk Sergeant I got approached. They offered me a knockout deal. Too good to turn down, any rate.’ He leaned back, his eyes wandering, as if revisiting the memory. ‘I talked it over with your dad, like I did everything. I said I’d only do it if he came in.’

‘Breakin’ my heart here, Bob.’ I pressed a flat palm into my chest. ‘Truly you are. Oprah should hear this.’

There was a long pause. ‘I shouldn’t really be in here,’ he said.

‘Makes two of us.’ I nodded at where the duty officer had been standing. ‘She on the team, too? Or she just owe you a favour?’

‘She’s a good girl. Going places.’

‘We can’t have that, can we? Best to corrupt ‘em early, eh.’

‘It’s not like that.’ He raised his shoulders. ‘It may surprise you to know, lad, but I’m respected around here.’

‘Not now.’

His eyes stirred. ‘Have you said owt?’

‘Well, it may surprise you to know, Bob,’ I said, crossing my arms, ‘but it’s not all about you. I’ll tell them about your miserable part in this cluster-fuck when it suits me.’

‘You can’t do that.’ His eyelids closed.

‘I think you’ll find I can.’

‘You do, and your dad gets implicated.’ He pounded the desk with blanched knuckles. ‘Why ruin his name? It would break your mum’s heart.’

‘Only if it were true.’

‘It is,’ he said. He leaned back and rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘I can prove it. I’ve got records.’

‘What records?’

‘I logged all the deals, all the pay-offs.’

‘Show me what you’ve got?’

He shook his head. ‘It’ll mean bugger all to you, or to anyone. But if it gets cross-referenced with the records here – bingo!’ He leaned in and lowered his voice. ‘All you need to know is I’ve got it in a safe place, and I’ll use it if I have to.’

I thought back to being crumpled in Bob’s hallway, trying to catch my breath, and the strange, blurry indent I’d seen in the stairs.

‘Yeah? All you need to know is, I don’t believe anything you say.’

‘Up to you,’ he said, standing. ‘I have to go. Don’t be a daft twat. Keep your mouth shut or it all comes out. Do we have a deal?’ He stared into my eyes and held out a hand.

I kept mine flat on the table. ‘It ain’t over, Bob. Stay away from me. And stay away from my mum.’

‘Or?’

‘Behave yourself, Bob. Now piss off.’

~

Time became like Mister Fantastic, stretching far into the near future, then pinging back pretty much as it was. Blink and you missed it. I didn’t miss DCI Hobbs clomping into the interview room. He came and stood in front of me, a quizzical look on his face.

‘Case solved?’ I asked.

‘Yes and no.’ He yanked a seat closer to mine, swivelling it around on one leg before sitting down. ‘We pretty well know what happened at Clegg’s flat. We just have to decide on the charges. As for Helen Porson’s sister …’ He leaned in closer. ‘I’ll level with you. I’ve gone through all the statements, all the forensics, all the evidence, and I still don’t know what happened, or who to charge, or with what.’ He gripped the table top, whitening his knuckles. ‘What happened, Eddie? Do you know?’

‘Yes and no.’ I shrugged. ‘Mainly no, as it happens. But the thing is, I don’t much care.’

Truth to tell, I didn’t know – but I did care. In Columbo speak, it’d been
bodderin’
me all day. In between my Weighton Pier trapeze act and arriving at Blue HQ – interrupted only by Jimmy’s death-chase – it was all I
had
thought about. As someone once said, there are things we know we don’t know, things we don’t know we don’t know, and then there was this case. I didn’t know enough to know. Simple really, when you said it like that.

If there was one thing Bugg had said that made any kind of sense, it was that the answer had to be in the statements. A careful cross-reference of the statements. Forensics would probably have them all at the scene, and all in contact with the deceased. They couldn’t attribute guilt. The statements could, though, because someone had to be lying. Maybe they were all lying.

‘I don’t believe that,’ Hobbs was squawking. He got up and began to circle my chair, his eyes cast down. ‘You must have a theory?’

‘I have a hunch.’

‘Go on.’

‘Not that easy.’

‘What do you mean?’

I smiled. ‘I might be able to help …’

‘But?’

‘I need to see all the statements.’

He shook his head. ‘Can’t do it.’

‘Because?’

‘It would break procedure. The CPS wouldn’t touch it, not with that kind of breach.’

‘Only if I’m still a suspect.’ I tapped the table. ‘If I’m a free man I’m just ordinary Joe-Po helping out.’

He nodded carefully. ‘I’d have to file a ton of paperwork.’

‘Where do I sign?’

Hobbs rested his back against the wall and rubbed his face in his hands. ‘Bugg thinks you’ve got guilt running through you like a stick of rock.’

‘Bugg schmugg. You know different.’

‘Maybe.’ He gazed at me intently. ‘I’d still be doing you a huge favour.’

‘Yeah, but it’d be a favour for a favour.’

‘That remains to be seen. I’m the one taking the risk.’

‘You can always re-arrest me.’

He choked back a groan. ‘I’d be a laughing stock.’

I went to say something pithy – the curse of a gag reflex – but he gave me a warning look. For once I took heed.

After a little thinking time, he said, ‘It’s still a big ask.’

‘If you say so, but it’s not like I wouldn’t appreciate it. Anyway, there’s something else I need.’

‘We’re not horse-trading, Eddie. In fact, you’ve given me nothing yet. So right now you don’t have anything to trade.’

‘Yeah, but I will once I’ve read the statements. And ...’ I deliberately let it fade.

‘And?’

‘There’s stuff I’ve found out from them – all of them, even Jimmy. Stuff that won’t be in their statements. Incriminating type stuff.’

He nodded. Decision made. ‘Okay. What is it you want?’

‘Two things.’

Hobbs held his head in his hands. ‘Jesus, Eddie, you know how to push it.’

‘If I’m Jesus, you’re God. I know you can do it.’ With Hobbs wavering, I went for the clincher. ‘I’ll even throw in a discount. Let’s call it one and a half.’

He pulled a face but nodded. ‘Go on. Tell me what you want.’

I told him. He mulled it over for a good while. Then he agreed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Sunday – 21:37

I started with Jimmy’s statement. What can I tell you? It didn’t take long. My eyes glazed over a wilderness of white space, interspersed with the odd repeated phrase. No dictionary twirling required. His masterpiece basically boiled down to a fuck-load of “no comments”. The message was clear: nothing to see here folks, move along.

Tommy’s statement was even less forthcoming, and it didn’t contradict anything said by his boss. It didn’t mention any boat excursions, either. By some sorcery he’d even managed to sign it.

Next I read Helen Porson’s statement. I skimmed it quickly on first reading and didn’t notice much that I didn’t already know. Maybe a few extra details here and there.

I moved onto Robert’s statement, followed by Kip’s. It was remarkable how similar they were. They had either synchronised their stories or they were telling the truth. I didn’t favour the latter. Their text reflected what they’d told me, but with more detail. Yet in the detail, as Jimmy had reminded me earlier, hides the devil. Somewhere a tiny clash of detail would throw up a spark. It had to be so.

I read everything again in reverse order, slowly and carefully, all the time searching desperately for a “spark”. As I did, different permutations fizzed and waned with the nuance of every full-stop. It might not have been what I signed up for, but welcome to the new job. Having got to the end, I sat back, linked my fingers behind my head and thought it all through. I willed myself to behold a glorious break-through.

And the winner is …? I was buggered if I knew.

But something was niggling away. Whatever it was, it prompted me to remember Bugg’s words, his only specks of wisdom. The answer had to be in Helen Porson’s statement. Not because she was the assailant, but because she was centre stage for every act, every scene in the entire play; even the intermission. I had to find the combination of details in her statement that would tumble the lock.

Having grabbed a standard issue police pad, I spun it into the landscape position and jotted down a timeline. I re-read Helen’s statement word by word, marking each key event on the timeline, then cross-matching it with the other statements. When I placed all the protagonists at the crime scene in the alleged sequence, the inconsistencies materialised like an out-of-focus hologram.

With no statement to support Jimmy’s movements, I’d plotted his timeline based on what he’d told me. It dovetailed with Robert’s account, but not with Helen’s. There was no reason why Jimmy would have given me a truthful account, but there was no reason why he wouldn’t. Most likely it was a cocktail of half-truths and self-serving spin.

The Nkongos also had every good reason to shuck and jive, yet they’d been consistent all the way through about seeing Jimmy as they were leaving Priory Road, without seeming to realise the importance of both the sighting and the timing. Or had they played me on that from the start?

Jimmy claimed he’d had a tussle with Helen Porson in her kitchen, but that wasn’t what she’d told me, and it wasn’t in her statement. Maybe Jimmy had attacked Elaine by mistake, as in Helen’s account, then made up the story about Helen’s pre-emptive strike. But if that was a fabrication, why say it took place in the kitchen when Elaine had been laid low in the lounge? Was it proximity to the alleged weapon? And why would he make the whole story up anyway? It wasn’t a “Jimmy” style tale. Was it just a hasty cover-up? Did that explain it?

Maybe Jimmy’s story
had
happened the way he’d said. Maybe Helen was lying to implicate him. I couldn’t blame her, but would she really go that far?

If Helen’s version was the truth, Elaine had recovered from Kip’s assault only to be finished by Jimmy “The Constrictor”, which would really have topped off her merry run of luck.

If Jimmy’s version was the truth, Helen Porson had survived his attack in the kitchen, discovered her dead sister – courtesy of the Nkongos – then fabricated the other story as retribution. Both sounded dubious.