Ready or Not (23 page)

             
Dean sighed exasperatedly, resting his stocky forearms on the desk. ‘Look,’ he said, uneasily eyeing up the tape machine that was recording every word. ‘I’ve told you already. It was him, weren’t it. He made me do it.’

             
‘Him being Nathan Williams,’ Kate clarified for the tape. ‘Your cousin.’

             
She looked at the papers in front of her. ‘You’ve not been up to much recently, Mr Williams,’ she noted, studying his records, ‘unless you’ve just been clever enough not to get caught.’

             
She looked at the overly muscled, ape man opposite her, who breathed nosily through his mouth; his fat bottom lip hanging loose from his face like a handle on a Toby jug. It was definitely not the latter, she thought.

             
‘Convicted of theft in 2002. Other bits and pieces not worth mentioning. Convicted of benefit fraud in 2004. How long did you do for that?’

             
Dean sat back in his seat and rolled his eyes impatiently. ‘Three months,’ he said.

             
‘Is any of this relevant?’ the duty solicitor asked, peering forward to study Kate’s notes.

             
She looked up and met his eye. ‘It will be when this goes to court,’ she said. As if he needed reminding. She looked back to Dean. ‘The best thing you can do for yourself is start telling the truth.’

             
Dean glanced at the papers and sighed. He realised he was backed into a corner. ‘Orright,’ he said, caving in. ‘It were my idea. But only at first,’ he added quickly. ‘It was just one of them stupid things – I never thought it would ’appen, know what I mean?’

             
Kate shook her head. ‘No. Not really. Why did you wait in the car for two hours?’

             
‘I weren’t gonna do it,’ Dean admitted. ‘I had cold feet and that – she’s just a kid, she hadn’t done nothing. I just sat there, thinking like. I text Nathan and told him I was out, but he weren’t having it. Then he was on the phone giving me grief and that - telling me he’d do it himself anyway and take all the money. Said he’d do it and fit me up for it. Wouldn’t have been too hard for him, what with my record and that.’

             
He scratched his head. ‘We was all a bit skint, y’know. I’d just been laid off down the factory and the landlord was threatening to kick me out the house. Nathan’s never got any money anyway like, so he was straight on it – thought it was a wicked idea.’

             
‘Wicked,’ Kate repeated. ‘Indeed.’ She pursed her lips and resisted the urge to throw the tape recorder at him.

             
‘We seen that kid in the paper,’ Dean continued. ‘You know that one that was locked in that bed?’

             
‘I know the one,’ Kate said. She bit her bottom lip and shook her head incredulously. Unbelievable. Was there no end to some people’s stupidity?

             
‘Is that what you were hoping for?’ she asked, keeping her voice level. ‘The reward money?’

             
Dean Williams frowned at Kate, as if it she was the stupid one. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not exactly. I met this bloke. Said he had a mate what works for The Sun and that. Said if Dawn sold her story to the papers she’d get about twenty thousand minimum for it.’

             
Kate sat forward in her seat. ‘So Dawn was involved?’

             
Dean looked down at his lap. The metal bar through his pierced eyebrow glinted silver under the beam of the strip light. He blew air noisily. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Dawn weren’t in on it.’

             
Kate sat back. ‘Why are you covering for her, Dean?’

             
Dean looked up sharply. ‘I’m not,’ he said testily. ‘Why would I do that? She ain’t my girlfriend. She ain’t nuffin to me.’

             
Nathan Williams had already been interviewed and was back in one of the cells. He had sat through the interview with a smug smirk stuck on his face, blaming both his cousin and his girlfriend for Stacey’s abduction. He was an arrogant shit and Kate was going to make sure he went down for this, and the longer the better.

             
When Kate had spoken to Dawn Reed the woman was barely able to answer her questions. She’d gone into shock and collapsed at reception and was now with the duty doctor. She managed to talk for long enough to ask to see her daughter, and certainly didn’t sound as if she had known all along where Stacey was. If this was all an act, Kate thought, she was bloody good.

             
In the interview room with Dean, Kate told him, ‘Nathan says it was as much Dawn’s idea as yours’.

             
He breathed heavily through his nose and clenched a fist on the desk. ‘He would. He’s a prick.’

             
‘Why would he do that? Why would he implicate his own girlfriend?’

             
‘Nathan don’t give a shit,’ Dean said. ‘He wouldn’t care who went down for it, as long as it weren’t him. He don’t give a shit about Dawn, he’s just using her. Somewhere to live – someone to do his washing. He’s a fucking mammy’s boy. She’s too soft on him, mun.’

             
Kate processed the information. ‘But you were happy to do this to her?’

             
Dean looked down at his hands again. ‘It weren’t like that,’ he objected. ‘The kid were well looked after, fed and that.’

             
‘Well looked after?’ Kate repeated, her voice rising. ‘She was half dead when we pulled her out of that attic. She hadn’t had a bath in god knows how long, she was malnourished...’

             
Dean glanced sideways at the duty solicitor.

             
‘Under fed,’ he explained.

             
‘I gave her food!’ Dean argued, looking back at Kate.

             
Kate took a deep breath, trying to calm her anger. ‘She was probably too scared to eat it,’ she snapped. ‘Interview suspended at two twenty five,’ she said, glancing at the clock. She turned off the recorder. ‘I’ll be two minutes,’ she told the duty solicitor.

             
Outside in the corridor a PC stood guard by the waiting room, on the off chance that Dawn Reed was in fact RADA material and tried to make a run for it.

             
‘She still in there?’ Kate asked, gesturing at the closed door.

             
The PC nodded. ‘She keeps asking to see Stacey. Reckon she was in on it, boss?’

             
Kate shook her head. ‘Not a chance. Beavis and Butthead had her well fooled. Speaking of idiots, where is the other Mr Williams?’

             
‘Cell three. He’s demanding his phone call.’

             
Kate laughed bitterly. ‘Keep him waiting.’

             
Back in the interview room Dean Williams sat with his head in his hands. Kate restarted the tape. ‘You said there was a man. A man with a friend who worked for the press?’

             
‘Yeah.’

             
‘Did he suggest this idea then, or had you and Nathan already planned it?’

             
Dean gripped the edges of the table. ‘We’d thought of doing something,’ he confessed. ‘But it weren’t nothing more than that. It was just a thought. But him…’ He paused and let go of the desk, his big hands forming fat fists. ‘He egged us on, like. Kept talking about the money and that. I never trusted him, like,’ he lied. ‘I knew he was messing us about, but Nathan wanted to go through with it, give it a go.’

             
‘How did you know Dawn would even sell her story to the papers, Mr Williams? Didn’t it occur to you or your cousin that Dawn might be more interested in finding her daughter than talking to the press?’

             
Dean shrugged his bulky, weight lifter’s shoulders. ‘Dunno,’ he admitted. ‘Nathan was gonna persuade her, I suppose. She always gives in to him, sooner or later.’

             
‘And how were you going to end up with any of the money?’

             
Dean lowered his arms and put his hands on the desk. His face creased in a look of confusion and his piggy eyes stared through her as he digested the question. It was obvious he hadn’t planned that far ahead.

             
It was also obvious that Nathan had planned to pocket the lot. He was going to screw them both over, Dawn and Dean.

             
Kate shook her head slowly, despondently. ‘How did you think you were going to get away with it?’ she asked. ‘How was Stacey going to be ‘found’?

             
Dean clenched his fists on the desk. His puffy cheeks were colouring and a shine of perspiration dampened his forehead. There was a prolonged silence in which he tried to form an answer. There wasn’t one; he didn’t know. It was clear to Kate and the duty solicitor that Dean had no idea how the plan was supposed to unfold. The promise of a fat wad of cash had been enough to cloud what little common sense he had.

             
‘Fucker,’ Dean muttered under his breath, his knuckles whitening as he clenched his fists tighter.

             
He sat straight suddenly and banged a fist on the desk.

             
‘Dean…’ Kate warned.

             
‘He said it was idiot proof!’

             
If it hadn’t all been so tragic, Kate may have been tempted to laugh. ‘Who said?’ she asked, forcing back a smile. ‘Nathan?’

             
Dean looked up at the ceiling and gritted his teeth. ‘No!’ he snapped. ‘Adam!’

             
Kate glanced at the duty solicitor, who shrugged unhelpfully.

             
‘Who’s Adam?’ she asked.

             
‘The one with the mate at The Sun,’ Dean explained. ‘He put us up to it – it was him!’

             
Kate sat back. ‘I’m not following,’ she admitted. ‘Why would he ‘put you up to it’? What was in it for him? A share of the money?’

             
Dean clamped his lips together and breathed heavily through his nose. The noise of his breathing filled the small interview room. ‘He never asked for no money,’ he said. ‘Not from me anyway.’

             
Kate rolled her eyes. It didn’t make sense: why would someone encourage them to kidnap a child when there was nothing in it for him? What could he possibly gain from it? Unless, of course, he did it to drop Dean and Nathan in the shit.

             
‘Who is Adam?’ Kate asked.

             
Dean shrugged. ‘I’ve only known him a few months,’ he said. ‘Met him down the job centre.’

             
‘What’s his surname?’

             
Dean looked at the duty solicitor for guidance. ‘Do you know his surname, Dean?’ the man said.

             
‘No.’

             
He was telling the truth. Kate had no doubt that if he knew the man’s full name he’d have already given it to her. There was no reason to be surprised by the fact that Dean had neglected to find out this small detail, when everything else seemed to have passed him by so easily.

             
Kate raised her hands in disbelief. ‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘So a stranger whose surname you don’t even know tells you that if you kidnap a kid and get her mother to sell her story to the papers, you’ll make a load of money and no one will ask any questions?’

             
Dean lowered his eyes. Even he, it seemed, couldn’t believe his own stupidity.

             
‘For the purposes of the tape,’ Kate said, keeping her eye on him, ‘Mr Williams is now shaking his head. What’s the matter, Dean?’

             
Dean Williams said nothing, just shook his head in disbelief.

             
‘I’m charging you with the abduction and false imprisonment of Stacey Reed,’ Kate finished.

*

‘Kate,’ Superintendent Clayton said, passing her in the corridor. She stopped and waited to bask in his approval. Clayton smiled. ‘Good job,’ he said.

             
Kate didn’t wait for anything more; compliments from Clayton rarely consisted of more than a couple of syllables - he was a man of few words but many facial expressions - and she allowed herself to briefly savour the moment before heading back to her office.

             
Perhaps now people would begin to take her seriously again. Maybe every decision she made and every theory she shared with her colleagues wouldn’t be met with a passing of rolled eyes or a patronising look that said, here she goes again.

             
Her happiness was short lived. The photographs of a healthy, happy Stacey still greeted her as she entered the room and she began to take them down slowly, unable to comprehend the differences between this child and the one she had held in Dean Williams’ attic. The girl in the photographs was almost unrecognisable. Kate looked at the picture in her hand and wondered sadly how long it would be before the little girl smiled like that again, and how long it would be before another child took her place.