Unlawfully At Large, page 22
part #2 of DCI Tyler Series
Murray smirked at him as though he had just won a small but important victory.
Clarke could feel himself becoming flustered. “My apologies,” he said, hurriedly rummaging through the papers on his lap until he found the document he’d written on his client’s behalf during their consultation.
“Yes, a prepared statement. Here we go…” He cleared his throat and then began reading. “This is a prepared statement written by my solicitor but dictated by me, Gifford Mullings. I have asked my solicitor to read it out on my behalf. I will then be exercising my right to remain silent and will reply ‘no comment’ to all questions asked from that point onwards. I want to make it abundantly clear that I –”
“Use that word a lot, do you, Gifford?” Murray said, interrupting the solicitor. “Do you even know what abundantly means?” he scoffed.
“If I might be allowed to continue without further interruption,” Clarke snapped, absolutely livid with Murray for disrupting his flow.
Murray shrugged the rebuke off. “Just confirming that it was something he would normally say and not words you’ve put into his mouth,” he said with a saccharine smile.
Clarke’s features contorted with rage, but he knew he had to tread carefully because he had put words into Mullings’s mouth. In fact, he had written the prepared statement off his own back while Mullings read through the sports section of The Sun.
“As I was saying,” he said through gritted teeth, “… I want to make it abundantly clear that I had no idea my friend and his two associates were planning to break Claude Winston out of custody when I drove them to the hospital yesterday. Had I known what they intended I would not have allowed myself to become involved. I was told that Mr Winston was being discharged after an operation and that they wanted to take him home in style, which is why they had stolen a top of the range car. I was there as a chauffeur, not as a getaway driver. I do not know the names of two of the three people who were in the car with me. The only one whose name I do know is my friend, Errol Heston. I’m sure he will vouch for me if you ask him.” Clarke looked up and smiled triumphantly at Sergeant, who completely stonewalled him. It was clear from the frosty stare she was giving him that she didn’t believe a word of it.
He didn’t care what she thought. What he’d told them was complete bollocks, and everyone in the room knew it but, with Errol dead, the police would struggle to refute anything in the prepared statement. He cleared his throat again, feeling that he had regained the upper hand. “That concludes Gifford Mullings’ prepared statement,” he said piously. “I sincerely hope that you will now respect my client’s wishes, and refrain from asking him any more questions.”
Mullings nodded, seemingly impressed. “Can I go home now?” he asked.
“Not gonna happen,” Murray said flatly. He turned to face Clarke, regarding the man as though he was something unpleasant that he’d just trodden in. “Your client can sit there and say as much or as little as he wants, I don’t really care one way or another. Not only are we entitled to ask him any questions that we feel are relevant, we also have a sworn duty to the victim and his family to do exactly that, and for that reason, we intend to continue the interview as planned.”
Clarke made a show of huffing and puffing and protesting on his client’s behalf, but it was all gamesmanship and the police officers knew it. The bottom line was that Mullings was completely fucked. He was going to be charged with a Joint Enterprise murder; the only question was would it happen later today or would they grant him technical bail while they assembled all the outstanding statements, forensic evidence and CCTV at their leisure.
If they granted technical bail in regards to the murder, Mullings would still be remanded in custody for the TDA and drugs offences. When the poor naive fool had asked about his prospects of bail at Magistrates Court, Clarke had advised him not to hold his breath. The truth was there was no way in hell he was getting bail, not with his previous offending history. Mullings already had several convictions for failing to appear at court. Coupled with the fact he was looking at an imminent murder charge, it made him a considerable flight risk. Clarke reckoned there was more chance of persuading DS Sergeant to participate in one of his sexual fantasies with him, and getting DC Murray to pay for their hotel room than there was of a Magistrate granting Mullings bail.
Chapter 17
Dean Fletcher popped his head around Tyler’s office door. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, looking over the top of his reading glasses, “but I thought you might be interested to hear that I’ve found out where Angela Marley is living.”
“Excellent,” Jack said. “Have you passed on the good news to Mr Quinlan?”
“Not yet,” Dean said. “You’re my boss, not Mr Q, so I wanted you to be the first to know. Well, the second if you count Mr Dillon.”
Jack couldn’t help but smile. Throughout the day, his team had been calling him with updates on the actions they had been given by Andy’s MIR. They all knew that this went against protocol, and they should either be reporting back to a supervisor on Andy’s team or calling it into his MIR, but they also all knew that, with his team seconded, Tyler had been left twiddling his thumbs with not a lot else to do. The fact that they were reporting back to him first was their way of keeping him involved, and it was very touching.
“Much appreciated, Deano,” he said, “but you really should be telling Mr Quinlan or one of his supervisors this, not me.”
“Don’t care,” Dean said with belligerence. The researcher tended to see things very much in black and white, and the way he approached work tended to reflect this. “We should have had this job. No disrespect to Mr Q or his team, but we nicked Winston the first time around and I’ll bet you a pound to a penny it’ll be somebody from our team who lays hands on him this time, too.” He said this as though he considered it to be a point of honour.
A thought occurred to Tyler. “Is there a secret agenda going on here that I need to know about, Deano?” he asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, guv,” Fletcher said, shrugging nonchalantly. “But, if it was secret, I could hardly tell you, could I?”
Smartarse! Jack thought. But he had a point.
“You know, a more suspicious man than myself might wonder if there was some skulduggery going on to make sure that our team arrest Winston and his associates before Mr Quinlan’s people can lay their hands on him, just to make a point that we should have been given the job in the first place.”
Fletcher’s visage remained as enigmatic as ever. “As if any of us would do that.”
Tyler raised a cynical eyebrow. “As if,” he echoed, thinking that Fletcher must be a superb poker player because his face was impossible to read. “But, if you did, I don’t think it would be too hard to work out who the ringleader was.”
There was no doubt in his mind that, if they were up to anything, Tony Dillon would be the one orchestrating it, but he would have had no trouble roping in the likes of Bull, Fletcher, and Parker.
Fletcher fidgeted impatiently. “Don’t mean to be pushy, but I’ve got still a shed load of research to get through, so do you want to hear the update or not?”
“Come on then,” Jack said, unable to resist. “Tell me everything.”
Fletcher came in and pulled up a chair. He had printed out a couple of A3 sized maps and he gave one copy to Tyler and kept the other for himself. “Right, guv,” he said, pointing to a house he had circled with a red felt tip pen. “This is a squat in Vicarage Lane, E15. The rear garden backs onto a similar house in Evesham Road.”
Jack looked up. “So?”
“So, I’ve found several reports linking Angela Marley to this address over the past few months. She gave it as her home address the last time she was arrested, back in December, and a bail enquiry was carried out to confirm that she did actually reside there. Also, there’s a CRIMINT entry from the local beat bobby, dated January second, when he spotted her entering the address at sixteen-hundred hours with an unknown IC3 male he believed to be a punter.”
CRIMINT is the Met’s searchable intelligence database, where all information reports relating to criminal intelligence are stored.
“I don’t suppose the address has been searched recently?” Tyler asked.
Fletcher nodded. “Yep. A Section 18 was carried out there by the TSG in late November when another prostitute called…” he paused to check his notes, “…Lolaksi Agarwal – aka Lola – was arrested for possession of half-a-dozen wraps of cocaine. Nothing was found, but the TSG skipper had the brains to complete a floor plan of the address in case it was ever spun again.”
Tyler nodded, impressed.
“Oh, and I forgot to mention,” Dean said. “The name Angela Marley sounded vaguely familiar. I couldn’t think why at first, but then it came flooding back to me so I ran her details through the Operation Crawley account on HOLMES and...” He paused for dramatic effect.
“And…?”
“And, as I thought, she’s a hooker from Claude Winston’s stable, and she was with Fat Sandra Dawson and Tracey Phillips on the night that the Phillips girl was murdered.” Tracey Philips had been slaughtered on Halloween of the previous year. Operation Crawley, the randomly generated name that HOLMES had allotted for the ensuing investigation, had proved to be somewhat challenging, and it was a period in his career that Tyler would never forget.
“Well done, Deano, that really is very interesting. Tell me, do you have any information about any of the other occupants of this squat yet? I don’t suppose anyone called Roddy or Rodent lives there?”
“Not that I can see, but I’ve only just started my research. There was an interesting CRIMINT from last June where the body of a working girl was found in an upstairs room by a new arrival. Everyone thought the deceased had moved out the previous week, but it turned out she hadn’t; she’d overdosed and then crawled into a corner to die.”
“Sounds like a charming place,” Tyler said, screwing his face up in disgust.
“It’s not the Hilton, that’s for sure.”
“Have you got anything else?”
“Nope. I’ve only had time for a quick look so far, but I’m gonna delve through the system properly once I let Mr Q know.”
“What about this Rodent character? Who’s researching him?”
“Wendy’s been working on that, guv. Don’t think she’s getting very far though, at least not yet.”
As soon as Dean had left, Jack picked up his mobile and dialled Kelly Flower’s number to see if she could shed any light on what the team – or at least a clique within it – were up to. Maybe, he conceded, they weren’t up to anything and he was just being paranoid.
“Are you free to speak?” he asked when she picked up.
“Yeah, go on. Me and Colin are on our way to put the squeeze on another one of Winston’s mates, not that it’s got us anywhere so far.”
“Ah, I wanted to ask you something, but in private.”
There was a pregnant pause. “Okay…” she eventually said, and he could hear the cogs turning as she tried to work out what it was. “In that case, I’ll have to ring you back a bit later.”
“It’s nothing important,” he reassured her. “I’ll speak to you later.”
◆◆◆
They had broken from interview in order to let Gifford Mullings eat his lunch at a recognised mealtime in accordance with PACE.
After they booked the prisoner back in with the custody officer, the gaoler came straight over and handed him a hot meal, and then led him back to his cell to eat it. It didn’t look particularly appetising, and it smelled like it had been badly burnt.
“Can’t you give him something better than that?” Clarke complained, eying the stodgy meal the canteen had prepared as though it were a can of overcooked Pedigree Chum, which, knowing the canteen, Murray suspected it might well have been.
“I mean, does that gloop even qualify as food?”
“He gets the same food as we do,” Susie said, “only we have to pay good money for ours.”
Clarke wasn’t convinced. “If this was an internment camp instead of a police station, I reckon the Red Cross would be up in arms by now. That pile of lumpy gruel you just gave my client would definitely contravene the Geneva Convention.”
Murray became antagonistic. “Well, if you don’t like it, why don’t you put your hand in your pocket and treat your poor hard done by client to a MacDonald’s or something?” He sneered at the look of horror that appeared on the solicitor’s face. “Thought so. You’re quick enough to complain, but you’re not so keen to fork out any of your own money on the little scumbag, are you?”
Clarke spluttered, his face turning red. “How dare you!”
“Oi, Gifford,” Murray shouted after the departing prisoner. “Your solicitor has kindly said that if you don’t like the canteen food, he’ll pop out and get you a Mackey Dees. You can have whatever you want, no expense spared.”
Clarke stared at the detective with undisguised hatred. “I never –”
“Thanks, bruv,” Mullings said, returning to the custody desk and contemptuously tossing his food onto it. “This stuff smells like shit.”
“Maybe you should try it first,” Clarke said quickly.
“You try it, bruv,” Mullings said, turning his nose up at the suggestion. “I’ll have a Big Mac, large fries, and a strawberry shake.”
“They do a nice apple pie too, if you fancy a dessert,” Murray told him.
“For real,” Mullings said, nodding approvingly. “I’ll have one of them as well. How long you gonna be getting it, bruv? I’m famished.”
Murray smiled sweetly. “Yeah, you’d better hurry up,” he said. “He’s a growing lad.”
Clarke nodded, knowing he could hardly refuse his client without losing face. “Very well,” he said curtly. “I need to phone the office anyway, and feed the meter. Don’t want the council clamping my brand-new Jag, do I?”
After escorting Clarke out of the station, Murray decided to take advantage of the enforced break and pop over to the nearest tobacconists to get himself a packet of fags. He was feeling rather pleased with himself for getting one over on the Tango-faced brief. The smarmy bastard deserved to be taken down a peg or two.
There was a queue in the shop, and Murray tapped his foot impatiently as the Indian proprietor worked his way through them with all the speed of a handicapped slug. Three scruffily dressed schoolkids stood directly in front of him, laughing and giggling and generally being a nuisance. Checking his watch, he considered coming back later, but he didn’t’ know when he would get another chance, so he waited in line, trying his utmost to ignore the noisy urchins in front of him.
After what seemed an age, but was in reality only a few minutes, the shopkeeper finally got around to serving the brats, and Murray breathed a sigh of relief.
It was almost his turn.
He wondered what delights the little horrors would waste their pocket money on. With any luck, he thought bitterly, all the sugar would make their teeth rot.
“How much are these, mister?” the first of them asked, holding up a bag of Skittles.
“What about these,” the second chimed in, thrusting a packet of Rolo chocolate caramels in the Indian man’s face.
While they distracted the shopkeeper, their mate started jamming packets of sweets up his jumper, as bold as brass.
When Murray saw this, he smiled. It was shoplifting, plain and simple, and he should probably have nicked them for it, but he had done similar things – worse things actually – as a youngster.
Discreetly removing his warrant card from his pocket, he slid it in front of the little tealeaf’s face and placed a firm hand on his bony shoulder. Leaning forward menacingly, he whispered, “Be a good lad and put that lot back or you’ll be spending an afternoon in the cells with all the kiddy fiddlers and rapists.”
The boy froze on the spot, his face draining of colour. “I wasn’t going to keep them, mister,” he lied, hurriedly replacing the items as he spoke.
“Of course, not,” Murray said, grabbing hold of the boy by the scruff of the neck. “Now get your scabby mates and piss off so that I can get served.”
The boy nodded fearfully and quickly marshalled his two protesting friends out of the shop.
Murray smiled at the shopkeeper, who eyed him with undisguised suspicion, no doubt wondering what he’d just said to the poor innocent children to send them scurrying out of the shop without spending any money.
This twat probably thinks I’m a paedophile, Murry thought, wishing he’d kept quiet and left the boy to his own devices.
Ignoring the dubious looks the man behind the counter was giving him, Murray purchased a packet of twenty B&H, a giant bag of cheese and onion crisps, a can of full-fat Coke and a large bar of chocolate. If the proprietor did suspect that Murray was a child molester, he certainly didn’t let it stop him from making a sale.
Murray considered grabbing a little something for Susie while he was there, but then decided against it. She was a big girl, and if she wanted food, she could get it herself.
As he left the shop with his little bag of goodies, he caught sight of Oliver Clarke standing in the side road opposite. Unaware that he was being watched, the solicitor was tenderly caressing the bonnet of a gleaming Racing Green Jaguar.
“Fucking perv,” Murray muttered to himself.
While waiting for a suitable gap to appear in the fast-moving traffic, he saw Clarke remove a pile of loose change from his trouser pocket and start drip-feeding it into the meter beside his car. With a final loving stroke of the car’s roof, Clarke set off in the direction of the nearest MacDonald’s.
Murray didn’t bother rushing back. Instead, he walked straight by the police station’s entrance and carried on until he reached the park entrance a little further along. Despite being wrapped up in a winter coat and thick scarf, he was absolutely bloody freezing, but after having spent most of the morning in a smelly interview room with the odious solicitor and his pongy client, he badly needed some fresh air to clear his head so he decided to brave the cold for a little longer.
