DEATHLOOP (12 page)

This bugged Jason. What if his stuff didn’t get to Zack Fortune? What if it was thrown in the bin? He said as much when he handed it over to Patrick, but Miss Betty shouting over from behind the desk promised she would make sure Zack Fortune got it. Jason didn’t believe her really, but what could he do? He had wanted to run home and get it for Zack when they’d left the coffee bar but Zack had told him that he was taking the rest of the day off. The only way he could be sure of his papers being handed over was to find out where Zack lived and to ask him directly, but he didn’t think that was a good idea, not after last time.

Kelly Jones was Jason’s probation officer and the best person he had ever met. She was always so friendly and went out of her way to help him. Jason refused to believe she was like that with anyone else, she just wouldn’t have had the time. He knew they had something special between them so it surprised Jason when Kelly screamed at him and pushed him across her office one day when all he had done was try and kiss her.

It didn’t take Jason that long to find out where she lived, and he was only standing outside her house for a few hours when he was carted off in a police car and given the news that Kelly would no longer be his probation officer but that someone else would.

This was a devastating blow to Jason. It was the first time anyone had shown any interest in him at all and now it seemed this person wanted nothing more to do with him. He loved Kelly, but it seemed that she did not love him because even after he had been told not to hang around outside her house he still found ways of seeing her, and that seemed to upset her even more. He would wait at the same bus stop in the morning and follow her home from work, until one day Kelly burst into tears and told him to stop following her because she didn’t love him, he had got that wrong, in fact she was beginning to hate him.

Later that day Jason decided to get drunk on gin and vodka and his foster family complained that they couldn’t cope with him anymore. He went into a new children’s home but there were too many crazy kids in there for Jason’s liking, so he smashed his room up and clouted one of the social workers and got into quite a bit of trouble because of it.

Jason realised that finding out where Zack lived and waiting around for him might cause similar problems. That would be like making the same mistake twice and he wasn’t stupid. No, he would leave it a few days, and then write to Zack asking him if he had received the bundle, and if he hadn’t he would get Miss Betty and the black bloke Patrick into serious trouble. Yes, in fact the more Jason thought about this idea the more he liked it. His new enemies would get sacked, and Zack would feel he had to work extra hard on Jason’s behalf because of it.

At the police station, Zack was put through the usual procedures, all very proper, all very correct. The forensic test was humiliating: scrapings and swabs, hair and nails, skin and groin. The nondescript middle aged man who collected these samples spoke only when he had to, as though vocabulary was a controlled substance. So, deprived of conversation, Zack found himself listening to the crumpling of the suits, the crinkling of the plastic envelopes, the screwing of tops on small bottles. He also found himself wondering if this was all this man did each day - collect very personal things in a very impersonal way, and what kind of satisfaction he could possibly derive from it. Finally the man seemed satisfied with Zack’s secretions, the harvesting was complete.

A duty solicitor arrived and introduced herself to Zack as Ms Tracy Bright. An unfortunate name for this girl, Zack decided, as her hair was mousy, her complexion was sallow, the whites of her eyes were dull, and her clothes were grey - a swot from a working class background.

Tracy had been disturbed from her slumbers by the phone call that had brought her here, so she had made no real attempt to impress, it was just too early for all that. When Tracy saw Zack she was thrown - a man with all this going for him, a rapist? Unlikely thought Tracy, unless of course he was completely messed up, and that was always a possibility these days. She really wished she had made more of an effort now, she couldn’t even remember combing her hair.

Tracy had suggested Zack make no comment at all for the time being, which would give them the opportunity to discuss things in more detail. Zack had often suggested the same thing himself so he knew the score. But it always set alarm bells ringing in his experience because it nearly always signified guilt, and Zack was not guilty. According to Tracy, Susan alleged Zack had attacked her in his flat and raped her, oh and she had the injuries to prove it, as well.

“She’s barmy,” said Zack, “a crackpot of the first order.”

“I’d guard against comments like that if I were you,” said Tracy, ice cold, “they’re not helpful, and you enjoyed a relationship with this woman after all.”

Oh blimey, thought Zack, a radical feminist. That lot wouldn’t know barmy if they fell over it.

In a small dingy interview room, Zack and Tracy sat on one side of an old table. Two policemen in plain clothes faced them. Detective Sergeant Brian Smith was early fifties, gaunt, haggard, with thinning hair and dead eyes, but his well-worn clothes had been cleaned and pressed with military precision. He wore a signet ring on his little finger and it was so at odds with this man - an affectation, that instead of indicating better breeding which was so obviously the intention, it served only to suggest the opposite.

The other was Detective Sergeant Josiah Cornfield, 35, chubby, black, baby faced, with popping eyes that swung restlessly round the room like they were sweeping for mines. The tape was set up and Brian Smith spoke briefly quoting the time and day. Zack barely paid attention to the formalities.

“Do you know someone called Susan Wilmot, Mr Fortune?”

“Yes, of course I do, she’s my ex-girlfriend.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Not long before you lot smashed down my door.”

“Where was this?”

“In my flat,” said Zack, weary already, and wondering how long all this would take.

“You invited her into your flat, did you?”

“Okay, here’s what happened…” said Zack, keen to get this over with so he could get back to bed, “I was in bed asleep. A sound woke me, or something woke me and Susan was there lying beside me… oh and she’d taken her clothes off by the way. She suggested we reinstate our relationship, I turned her down, then I went back to sleep. That’s it, that’s what happened… the end.”

Brian and Josiah gazed at Zack levelly and he knew they didn’t believe him.

“She had no clothes on you say…”

“That’s right.”

“Why was that?”

“Ask her.”

“Did you take her clothes off?”

“I was asleep,” said Zack, stifling irritation, “I didn’t even know she was there.”

“So how did she get in?”

“With keys I imagine.”

“
Your
keys?” asked Brian, incredulous.

“Well obviously, I must have given her a set at some point, I don’t remember.”

“
You don’t remember handing out a set of keys
?” asked Brian, as though this was a hanging offence, “not very security conscious, are we?”

Why were policemen always so damned predictable thought Zack. You can spot them and their narrow minded obsessions on a neighbouring galaxy.

“So what happened then?”

“When?”

“You woke up and found Susan Wilmot in bed with you, so what did you do then?” said Brian, annoyed at having to repeat himself.

“We talked and I fell asleep, that’s it, I told you.”

“You’ve got scratches on your arms, can you explain them?”

“What scratches?”

Zack glanced down to his arms, two angry red streaks ran up them. “I don’t know,” said Zack, bewildered.

“Did you have sex with Susan Wilmot early this morning, Mr Fortune?”

“No.”

“How about last night?” said Brian, reasonably, as though this was another valid possibility.

“I was out last night.”

“Oh yes, where?”

Hell, thought Zack. He couldn’t involve Sid in this, no way would he play ball with the law or even give a statement.

“Just here and there,” said Zack, evasively.

“And where is that exactly?” said Brian, “where
is
here and there?”

“A pub in Westbourne Park, I just dropped in for a game of pool.”

“And would your pool partner be able to confirm that?”

“I don’t know the guy,” said Zack, aware that he had dug himself into a hole and was still digging.

“Ah, I see. A man in a pub, is that it?” said Brian as though he might just have heard this somewhere before.

“Yes, that’s right.”

In unison Brian and Josiah seemed to sag, a sense of disappointment shared between them that the suspect could not come up with anything more original than this.

“So you got home at what time?”

“Twelve… one, maybe, I was tired by then, I needed to sleep.”

“And so you went to bed?”

“Yes,” said Zack, pleased to have got away from Sid for a moment at least.

“Did you ask Susan to come to your flat?”

“No, I just told you. I finished with Susan on Wednesday. I told her I didn’t want to see her again. She found it difficult to accept my decision and she came round to change my mind.” Brian looked at him and he knew he still did not believe him. “She’s been trying to get into contact with me since, my phone is jammed full of messages, texts. You can check it if you like.”

“Thank you we will,” said Brian, “and you sent Susan no similar messages?”

“No, of course not,” said Zack.

“Are you sure about that?”

“I’m positive.”

“Well that’s very strange,” said Brian, “because at 11.30 last night Susan Wilmot received a text message from your mobile phone which reads, “
Susan, I have to see you, Zack
.”

Tracy’s eyes flickered, but very briefly. She continued writing, curious now as to how Zack would answer this.

“That can’t have happened,” said Zack.

Brian waited, allowing a few moments to tick by before making his reply. “We don’t get that kind of thing wrong, Mr Fortune, I’m sure you are aware of that.”

Zack was sweating now, the after effects of the pills were kicking in. Sid was right when he said they were poison, he felt sick, clammy, and his throat was dry, like he’d just swallowed concrete. He regretted now not listening to Tracy, it was conceit. Tracy had given him the correct advice and he had ignored it because he thought he knew better. Well on this occasion he did not know better, and it was clear that everyone else in the room had just come to the same conclusion.

Brian was delighted to see how uncomfortable the suspect had become. It was obvious that this Fortune guy had led a charmed life, he was very handsome, wealthy, educated, a spoilt child no doubt, the apple of his mother’s eye. Clearly he thought he was above all this, speaking to them with contempt, arrogant enough to think that he could beat the rap no matter how much evidence was stacked against him. But like many before him he would see that the justice system is a great leveller, watch how the mighty fall! A lawyer too and all lawyers were iffy in Brian’s book. During his long and what he liked to think of as an illustrious career in the police service, Brian had come across more bent lawyers than you could shake a stick at. They were an abomination as far as he was concerned.

Secretly, Brian had always been extremely embarrassed by his own background, brought up in abject poverty by a woman so stressed by life and her four children, that at the age of 23 she stopped smiling and to his knowledge, never smiled again. Brian had always resented their threadbare existence and this resentment intensified when he began working as an errand boy for the local grocer, standing on steps, peeking round doors, glimpsing other people’s lives that seemed well-nigh idyllic compared with his own. Keen to escape the drudgery of his life in south London, Brian had applied to join the army but an injury to his hip had precluded that, so he ended up a simple copper, second best again, (another compromise), despite enjoying a measure of respect the job afforded him.

Brian knew he should pat himself on the back, after all, he owned his own home and his own car, had brought up two boys, albeit in a loveless marriage that he was glad to be rid of, but he still felt life had dealt him a lousy hand. It had made him sour this life that he had endured, and in many ways all these years later he still felt like that kid on the step, always looking in from the outside at exciting worlds he knew he would never be part of.

He didn’t see much of the boys these days, they had sided with their mother since the divorce and gone to ground. They had children of their own now apparently although he had never seen them. He would have liked to have seen them, but he was never very good with all that so maybe that’s why his sons kept them away. The loneliness that still dogged him was nothing new, Brian had been lonely all his life. He had his interests, his allotment, the darts team, the British Legion, but he dreaded retirement, what on earth would he do to fill his days?

Brian was well aware of his reputation amongst his peers: a throwback to the days of the ‘us and them’ mentality, a member of the non-pc brigade who refused point blank to embrace the new directives that rained down on their heads daily, urging a more compassionate and socially inclusive police force. Brian resolutely refused to pay lip service to it all. He had never once come out and said it was a load of old cobblers but he had no need to, one look at the man told you that he was old school and that nothing would persuade him otherwise. But no one else put in the hours that Brian did, or worked with such attention to detail, so for all his archaic nitpicking, he was the copper that got results, he was the one others reluctantly turned to when their sloppy investigations hit the skids.

But his modus operandi won him no accolades and it certainly won him no friends. In the nineties when so many of his contemporaries succumbed to bribes and the promise of untold riches to turn a blind eye, to ‘lose’ evidence and to incriminate the innocent, it was Brian’s dogged pursuit of these corrupt characters that put a string of them behind bars. Brian knew that in certain quarters he was secretly resented because of this even now, he’d turned against his own after all, but to Brian, right and wrong was set in stone, to Brian right and wrong was sacrosanct.