Down Among the Dead Men (23 page)

'It's him.'

Before Harris can reply, Frank catches the eye of a thickset middle-aged man on the opposite side of the cafe. At Frank's glance he turns his head back to the iPad he'd been reading. Frank keeps looking but knows that with Harris in the room there are always going to be eyes pointed in their direction.

'Was he here when we arrived?' Frank inclines his head fractionally in the direction of the man with the iPad.

'Who?' Harris is confused.

'Doesn't matter.'

'Are you getting enough sleep?' Frank senses sarcasm but there's nothing showing in Harris's expression.

'I'm OK.'

'Theresa's got some sort of bee in her bonnet this morning. Looked like she was on a mission. And she's at the Quinner autopsy this afternoon. She might have something useful for us.'

Frank nods absently. The guy on the iPad gets up and goes to the bathroom. Frank puts down his coffee and gets to his feet, his quads still aching from Tuesday's work-out.

'Won't be long,' he says, and heads towards the toilets. Harris rolls her eyes and sinks back into the leather seat.

Frank pushes open the toilet door. The guy is at the urinal and Frank leans back against a wall. After a second or two, the big man glances over his shoulder at Frank and then back at the empty urinal next to him.

'Can I help you?' he says.

'You're American.'

The man finishes pissing and zips up. He turns and washes his hands at the sink.

'Yes,' he says cautiously. 'I'm American. What's the problem? If you're looking for a pick-up, I can tell you I'm not the guy you need.'

Frank takes out his warrant card. 'You know what this is, right?'

The man seems baffled. 'Look, I have to go.'

'You're a cop.' Frank's making a statement. 'I can tell.'

'You're a fucking nut,' says the guy. 'I used to be a cop. Now I'm a tourist.' Close up, Frank can see the man is older than he'd first thought, his short hair speckled with grey. The guy makes a move to push past Frank and Frank holds out an arm and places a hand flat on the man's chest. As he does, the guy eyeballs Frank and shakes his head. 'I wouldn't,' he says in an even tone.

'A tourist?' says Frank. 'I don't think so.'

The guy sighs and then something happens, something quick, and Frank finds himself on the tile floor trying desperately to
breathe. The American has Frank's arm behind his back and a knee on the nape of his neck.

'Stay down,' he says. 'It'll take a couple of minutes to get your breath back.'

He releases Frank and stands. Frank sees the door open and the man leave. Frank tries to stand but can't, not yet. He puts his forehead on the white tile and waits, panting heavily. Just as the American had said, his breathing returns to normal after a few minutes. Frank gets to his feet and opens the door to the cafe. Harris looks at him curiously as he approaches. There's no sign of the American.

'Are you feeling OK?'

Frank nods, the movement making his neck hurt.

'Because you look like crap, Frank.'

'Thanks.' Frank's voice is hoarse and he coughs. 'Just a touch of flu.' Without knowing why, he decides he's not going to say anything about the man in the toilets. He feels soiled by the encounter and embarrassed.

And curious.

Harris waves her iPhone at him. 'We've been summoned.'

Frank takes a drink from his coffee cup and raises his eyebrows.

'Searle's at Stanley Road asking for you.'

'He can wait.'

Harris shakes her head. 'That's not why we have to go. Caddick called about Noone.'

Frank looks up. 'What?'

'He's got a lawyer.'

Forty-Four

The night with the nurse turned out better than Ronnie Rimmer had dared imagine – and he was a man with a highly coloured imagination when it came to sex – and he positively bounces into work straight from her place, wearing the frazzled, triumphant air of a man who got very lucky indeed.

Ignoring Steve Rose's adolescent jibes, Rimmer dives back into the grinding task of assembling the information on the Quinner file. It's not until midafternoon that a name in front of him triggers something.

Niall McCluskey.

Dean Quinner, despite his Liverpool Irish roots, doesn't have too many relatives in the city. Apart from his mother and a younger sister, most of the family seem to have moved to Manchester for some unfathomable reason. But Big Niall, the cousin, is one who'd stayed.

Rimmer is sure he's heard the name before. He goes to work on McCluskey and finds a reasonable file on him. A couple of minor assault charges, some D & Ds, one charge of petty theft and an arrest for public nudity. It's hardly the file of a master criminal but it's something. But Niall's record isn't what is itching Rimmer's memory.

Wasn't McCluskey the name of the guy with the missing finger that Hanna had told him about last night? Half-cut, she'd blurted out the guy's name without thinking, violating several privacy laws, and then asked Ronnie to forget all about it. 'Forget about what?' he'd said. Now Rimmer wishes he'd paid more attention to what she'd been saying than what she'd been wearing.

He takes his phone and dials Hanna's number. It goes onto voice-mail and he leaves a brief message for her to call him. It's only when
he hangs up that he realises she may think it's a purely personal matter, so, feeling foolish, he dials again and leaves a second message letting her know this is police business. The two calls, neither delivered very articulately, hardly show him in a smooth light, and Steve Rose lets him know it via a series of snickering one-liners, but it can't be helped.

Next, Rimmer calls Walton A & E. It takes him almost twenty minutes to burrow through the bureaucracy and get someone who is able to tell him the names of the admissions to the department on the night in question. Despite some initial resistance to giving out the information Rimmer reminds the receptionist that the patient in question is possibly important to several murder investigations.

'We already know he received treatment,' says Rimmer without revealing how.

'What's the name again?'

'McCluskey.'

'Yeah,' says the receptionist after a pause. 'Niall McCluskey. Came in at 1.54 am. Hand injury. Discharged himself at 5.10 after he'd been stitched up.'

Rimmer's starting to get a good feeling about this.

He walks across to Frank Keane's office but he's not there.

'He's in J7,' says Manda Davies. 'He and DI Harris are interviewing the actor.'

'I thought that was earlier?'

Davies shrugs. 'It was, but for some reason they left him to stew. He got a lawyer and they're in there now.' She tilts her head and says in a singsong voice, 'I wouldn't talk to him right now . . .'

'Oh?'

She looks up at Rimmer. 'He didn't look too pleased when he came back in. And Superintendent Searle's looking for him.'

Rimmer nods and returns to his desk. Manda's got a point. If Keane's got a moody on, Rimmer knows he'd better choose his moment. Chasing a loose end like this won't be welcomed without something more substantial behind it.

Rimmer grabs his coat. With a bit of luck he can put some more meat on the bones before presenting the offering to Keane.

'I'm going out for a bit,' he tells Rose. 'Fancy coming?'

'Roy won't like it.'

'Suit yourself.'

'Hold on,' says Rose. 'I didn't say I wasn't coming.'

Twenty minutes later, Rimmer and Rose are at Niall McCluskey's place.

'How do you know he's there?' Rimmer's filled Rose in on the details on the drive over.

'I don't,' says Rimmer. He looks up at the flats. 'But I'd bet money that he's holed up inside.' Rimmer's been thinking it through, and the more he thinks about it, the more the whole episode sounds like someone being warned off. Finding out that Niall McCluskey was injured almost immediately preceding Quinner's death, Rimmer's sure he's onto something.

'In any case, someone's got to tell him about Dean.'

'His cousin?' Rose laughs. 'Since when do we break the news to cousins? How about getting some counselling for the neighbours?'

'You know what I mean. Gives us a reason to be here. Quinner didn't have much family still here.'

Rimmer opens the door that separates the bookie's from the bakery and heads up the narrow stairs. On the landing he knocks on the door and strengthens his Liverpool accent.

'Delivery!' He knocks hard again and waits. Steve Rose rocks backwards on his heels, his arms folded. He raises his eyebrows and Rimmer shakes his head.

He knocks again and this time puts a bit of a whine into the words.

'Come on, mate. I can't leave this outside. Someone'll nick it.'

The door opens and Niall looks out.

'Shit,' he says as he sees the two coppers.

'Niall McCluskey?' says Rimmer.

'No,' says Niall, but it's a half-hearted attempt. Rimmer's already pushing past him into the flat.

'Come in,' mutters Niall. 'Make yourselves at home.'

In the living room Rimmer stands in the centre while Niall waits in the doorway. The TV is showing a cop movie, the sound turned down. Rose ambles around, looking at the few items in the room. He picks up the remote and turns off the TV. The smell of recently smoked weed hangs in the air.

'Fond of the wacky baccy, Niall?' says Rose.

'What's all this about, like?' says Niall, ignoring the question. Even he can see that these two aren't here about dope.

'You hurt your hand?' Rimmer gestures towards Niall's bandage.

Niall raises it limply and looks at his hand as if surprised to find it there.

'It's nothing.'

He puts it behind his back. The action is so childlike that it's all Rimmer can do not to smile.

'How did you lose your finger, Niall?' says Rimmer. Niall looks at Rimmer as if he's a mind-reader. 'Has it got anything to do with Dean's death?'

Niall flinches as if struck. His mouth opens and then closes again. 'What?'

'Dean, your cousin. We found him in the river. Tuesday morning.'

Rimmer gestures towards the sofa.

'You'd better sit down, Niall,' he says. 'Tell us what happened.'

Niall sits down heavily on the cheap sofa and starts to talk.

Forty-Five

The lawyer's somewhere around forty, blond-haired and pink-faced. His name is Eagles. That's what it says on the card he hands to Frank as soon as he walks back into the interview room. Eagles passes a second card to Harris. Noone is sitting comfortably behind the table, the lawyer standing.

Frank catches Noone's eye and gets nothing back, not even annoyance. The American doesn't even look bored.

Eagles holds out a hand, which Frank shakes, although not with any enthusiasm.

'You turned up quick, Mr Eagles,' says Frank. 'What were you doing, just hanging around outside the building on the off-chance?' He inclines his head towards Noone. 'You know this is simply a routine questioning?'

'Mr Noone wanted someone here to make sure there are no misunderstandings. He's . . . sensitive about his position as a foreigner in a situation like this.'

Frank looks closer at Eagles' card. 'You're with Bilson's? I didn't know you did this kind of thing. Bit grubby for you lot, isn't it?'

Eagles ignores Frank's question. 'Mr Noone is here under his own free will. And leaving him here to stew is not something you do to witnesses who happen to be our clients, DCI Keane. Any further questioning from this point forward will be done in my presence. Now, do you have anything more you want to talk to my client about?'

Frank sits down opposite Noone and looks at him. 'Yes,' he says after a few seconds have passed, 'I think we do.' He presses the digital recorder and updates the time and people present.

Harris takes the seat next to Frank, leaving Eagles standing.

'A chair?' says the lawyer.

Frank waves a hand in the direction of the door. 'Ask the officer outside.' He turns to Eagles. 'Or you can just hang upside down from the ceiling. Whatever's easier.'

Eagles doesn't react and Frank feels like a tool for the cheap gibe. The man's only doing what he's supposed to be doing. Frank gets up and brings in a chair from the corridor outside.

Frank sits and reads the file in his hands. Harris leans across and points at a note Frank has made in the margin. He nods. When he looks up, Noone is watching Harris, the trace of a smile on his face.

'Something amusing you, Nr Noone?'

Noone shrugs. 'Just thought you two overplayed that a little. Too
CSI
.'

'Is that how you see everything? As an act?'

'Isn't it?'

'Are you going to ask my client any more questions?' says Eagles.

Frank doesn't reply. Instead Harris speaks. 'How did you get Mr Eagles' phone number?'

Noone holds up his phone and waggles it between his thumb and forefinger. 'Google.'

'You just happened to find a senior partner at Bilson's ready to drop everything and scurry across to Stanley Road?'

Eagles leans forward. 'I hardly think this is something that needs to be answered. I am Mr Noone's representative. How that happened is none of your concern.'

'Let's turn to the events of Friday the fourteenth,' says Frank. 'You told us you left Maxie's before Nicky –'

'I said I think I did. I didn't really notice. He's only a kid.'

'Where did you go after leaving Maxie's?'

'Back to my apartment.'

'Alone?'

Noone shakes his head. 'No. I was with some chick.'

This is information neither Frank nor Harris is expecting.

'You gave us the impression you left alone.' Harris's voice is even. 'Who was this woman? Do you know her name?'

'I did leave the club alone. I met this girl outside. Bummed a cigarette off her, got talking and she came back.'

'Just like that?'

Noone smiles. 'What can I say?' He folds his arms. 'I think her name was Helen, something like that. Ellen, maybe.'

'Phone number?'

'No,' says Noone. 'She left early.'

Frank makes a note on the file and shows it to Harris. She gets up and leaves the room, Noone watching her as she goes. 'How early?' says Frank.