Road Closed (21 page)

‘Your suspect’s been assaulted, ma’am,’ the duty sergeant told her.

‘What?’

Peterson joined them. ‘Raymond Barker,’ he said. ‘Assaulted on the street on Saturday night. He’s been in A & E.’

‘Assaulted or brawling?’ Without waiting for an answer, Geraldine made her way to her office. Annoyed with herself for not checking her emails before coming in to work, she glanced quickly through a report on the incident. At least she could be up to speed before the briefing began.

Raymond Barker had been admitted to A & E on Saturday night. Geraldine read through the injuries: temporary chemical blinding, broken nose, concussion probably caused by a fall, and broken ankle. Someone had been angry. She pushed her keyboard aside and read through the report again slowly.

Raymond Barker had visited his local pub on Saturday evening with his housemate, Callum Martin. Martin had left early. Barker had stayed on, drinking alone. On his short walk home, Barker had been violently assaulted. He had regained consciousness but wasn’t yet able to make a statement. All he could remember was pain before he passed out. Luckily for him, a passer by had called an ambulance.

Geraldine read the witness statement. The injured man had been discovered just after eleven o’clock. The paramedics said Barker wouldn’t have lasted the whole night in the freezing cold, with his injuries.

Geraldine frowned. Barker’s wallet was visible in his back pocket. His mobile phone was in his jacket pocket. This was an odd mugging. She wandered thoughtfully back into the Incident Room.

Peterson interrupted her thoughts. ‘Serves him right. He had it coming,’ he muttered as the briefing began.

‘No one deserves that,’ Geraldine replied.

The DCI looked around for silence. ‘We still need to establish if there’s a connection between the burglaries and this Raymond Barker,’ he said, tapping at Barker’s picture on the board. His eyes were red and swollen, his nose bloody. ‘Deborah Mainwaring picked him out as her intruder. Barker gave an account of his presence in her house, but…’ he shrugged. ‘He’s got an alibi for the nights both burglaries were committed.’

‘An alibi that’s a tissue of lies,’ Bennett muttered and the DCI frowned.

‘Sophie Cliff claims she saw Barker running away from her house the night of the gas explosion,’ Geraldine said.

‘It was a bit of a coincidence her seeing him here,’ someone pointed out.

‘She could’ve been mistaken,’ the DCI added. ‘She could only have seen him for about a second, at night.’

‘In her headlights,’ Peterson said.

The DCI tapped at Barker’s picture again. ‘The assault on Barker doesn’t appear to have been a mugging. The victim had his wallet and his phone clearly in view. Neither were taken. He had nearly fifty quid on him. He wasn’t mugged for his cash. Which all suggests this could have been personal. It was certainly a vicious assault. His eyes were sprayed with a fluid containing butane, propane,’ he glanced at his notes, ‘ethanediol – all the components of a common brand of deicer.’

‘So his attacker could have been a woman,’ Geraldine said. ‘Do we know Sophie Cliff’s whereabouts last night? When I told her Raymond Barker had an alibi for the explosion, she refused to accept he wasn’t guilty. She seems convinced Barker was responsible for her husband’s death and was furious when we let him go. She said he should be punished.’

‘She wants someone to blame for her husband’s death,’ Bennett agreed.

‘Someone other than herself,’ Peterson muttered. ‘Never the woman’s fault.’ He sounded so bitter that Geraldine glanced at him in surprise before turning her attention back to the discussion.

‘And next thing,’ the DCI was saying, ‘Barker’s attacked.’

‘Is it possible Sophie Cliff assaulted him?’ Geraldine asked.

‘It was a vicious attack,’ the DCI replied. ‘Violent. Probably took some physical power. My money’s on Martin. Barker’s a big chap. Could a woman have done that?’

‘If she’d taken him by surprise.’

‘What about this character John Squires? We’ve got him at the scene. Who is he? Did he just happen to be passing by? We need to eliminate him or find out if there’s any connection between him and Barker.’

‘There’s something else in the report,’ Geraldine said. ‘When Barker was found by the paramedics…’ she hesitated. ‘The paramedic said someone had dropped a lighted match on Barker’s back. It must have flared up and gone out. A dead match on a patch of singed fabric’

‘Perhaps he lit a cigarette when he’d finished,’ Peterson suggested. Geraldine frowned.

After the briefing, Geraldine and Peterson were scheduled to interview Raymond Barker again, this time as the victim of an assault. He had been kept in hospital for observation over the weekend. That morning the doctors had checked him over and
sent him home, his leg in plaster. Before calling on Raymond Barker, they went to his local pub to question the landlord.

Ian Peterson speculated as they drove off. ‘It’s funny, if you think about it. There wasn’t enough time to rob the victim – fifty quid’s worth having even if the motive for the attack was personal – but there was time to light up without worrying about being seen. If it was a personal attack, why stop to light a cigarette?’ The DI didn’t answer. ‘Am I boring you?’ Still no reply. He lapsed into uneasy silence wondering if he had upset her. He was concerned about the DI. She seemed distracted. He knew she was dedicated to the job; it was one of the qualities he admired in her. But she didn’t seem to have her mind on work that morning.

‘Everything OK, gov?’ he hazarded as he drew up at the lights. He was startled when she snapped at him. He took both hands off the wheel and held them up in mock self defence. ‘I was only asking.’

‘Well don’t.’ After they had worked together so closely in the past, it was a curt reminder to know his place. He couldn’t call it a friendship, but he thought they had built a sense of trust. He thought he knew Geraldine, but right now she seemed edgy. Distracted.

The lights changed and they drove on in silence. Arriving in Garden Street, Ian leapt out of the car and slammed the door confused, disappointed, but above all furious. You just never knew with women. One moment everything was going swimmingly, the next he was made to feel like an idiot. For no reason.

He had worked hard to become a detective sergeant at thirty four, and was hoping for promotion to inspector by the time he was forty. Anyone would be proud of his achievement. Anyone but Bev. He earned good money, and could expect a decent pension at the end of it. He loved his
job. Trouble was, he loved Bev too. She had always been the girl for him, ever since they met at school, although he hadn’t realised it back then. He had fancied her, of course. All the boys did. Love had taken longer. They had been seeing each other for years, on and off, before she agreed to move in with him. Ian thought life couldn’t get any better. But once she had moved in, things had gone from bad to worse. He had never known such disappointment. It gnawed at him like a permanent toothache.

‘I wouldn’t mind if I knew,’ she had complained that morning, ‘but I can never tell when you’ll be home.’

Ian had turned away frowning. He could easily be more regular in his hours but, when he was on a case, he couldn’t focus on anything else. Overtime became routine. It wasn’t about the money. He earned well enough, more than a lot of his mates, and job security was worth a lot in times when so many people were coping with redundancy.

He had done his best to explain. ‘If I don’t throw myself into it a hundred per cent, I might as well not do the job at all. I don’t want to lie awake at night thinking that, if only I’d done more, we could’ve nailed some bastard sooner. You could try to understand, Bev. It’s not an easy job at the best of times.’ He had struggled to find the right words. ‘It’s more than a job. It’s a commitment.’

‘What about your commitment to me?’

‘That’s not an easy job either,’ Ian had thought. Usually he caved in at the sight of her in tears. This time he was irritated. ‘If you cared about me, you wouldn’t do this. You’d at least try to understand.’

‘I understand you care more about your bloody job than you do about me. You’ve made that clear.’

‘It’s not a competition,’ he had answered wearily. She ought to find herself a bank manager if she wanted someone
with set hours. ‘I can’t be what you want me to be.’ He had turned away, fiercely sad.

‘Where are you going? We’re not finished,’ Bev had called after him. He hadn’t turned back. If Bev wanted to leave him, there was nothing he could do to stop her. He loved her, but it would be a relief to put an end to her nagging.

38

Ray

‘Wonder if they do food?’ Peterson said as they went in, but it wasn’t that sort of pub. Dimly lit and smelling of sour beer and sweat, the bar was unpleasantly warm after the brisk air outside. It was almost deserted. One old man sat in a corner nursing an empty pint glass.

‘What can I get you?’ The landlord didn’t look surprised when Geraldine held out her identity card.

‘Detective Inspector Steel, and this is Detective Sergeant Peterson.’ The landlord leaned his elbows on the bar and waited. ‘We’d like to ask you a few questions about yesterday evening.’

‘Oh yes.’

Peterson showed him a photo of Raymond Barker. ‘Do you recognise this man?’

‘Should do,’ the barman replied. ‘That’s Ray. He’s in here most nights, him and his mate. Sometimes there’s a woman with them. I don’t know what it is, but…’ He shook his head. ‘She doesn’t look right, if you know what I mean.’ He made a gesture, rotating one finger by his temple. ‘More than a bit cuckoo, if you ask me.’

‘Is this the friend?’ Peterson slapped a picture of Callum Martin on the bar.

‘Yes, that’s the one. They were in here last night. The short bloke left early – Colin, is it? Ray stayed on for a bit.’

‘What time did Ray leave?’

‘It must’ve been about ten. I gave it another half hour then closed up at ten thirty.’

‘Did they usually leave separately?’

‘No, but it sounded to me as though they were having words last night.’

‘Words?’

‘I couldn’t hear what they were saying. They just looked like they were…’ The landlord glanced round the room as though casting about for inspiration. ‘The short bloke seemed pretty angry, anyway.’

‘Was that unusual?’ Geraldine asked. ‘Did they often argue?’

The landlord shrugged. ‘They drink together. I don’t hear much, standing here. You could ask Bert Cartwright. He might have something to say.’

Geraldine turned to glance at the old man in the corner. ‘Was he here yesterday evening?’

‘Bert’s always here.’

Bowed over the table, mumbling into his glass, the old man didn’t stir when Geraldine sat down.

‘Bert, I need your help.’ He nodded without raising his eyes. ‘Bert?’ She waved her warrant card in front of his face.

He muttered something. It sounded like ‘Not any more.’

She nodded at Peterson who went up to the bar for a half. He put it down in front of Bert who lifted the drink in an arthritic hand. He looked at Geraldine over his dirty glasses. She stared back at his filmy eyes and felt a jab of pity. Everything about him spoke of a lack of care, from his long fingernails to his unwashed hair. Close up she could see he was very old. He took a long draught, smacked his loose lips together and grinned, displaying a few yellow teeth.

His voice grated as though he wasn’t used to talking. ‘Hello, darling.’

Geraldine pushed two pictures across the sticky table: Raymond Barker and Callum Martin. ‘Do you recognise either of these two men?’ she asked. Bert glanced down at the table before raising the glass again. She waited while he drank.

‘That’s Ray,’ he said. ‘He’s all right, is Ray. Stands me a pint, sometimes.’

‘What about this one?’

Bert scowled at Cal’s picture. ‘He’s a mean bastard, that one,’ he said. Geraldine waited but he didn’t say anything else.

‘Were they in here yesterday evening?’ she asked eventually.

The old man inclined his head. ‘That one didn’t stay long,’ he said, tapping Cal’s picture with a long dirty finger nail. ‘Left before he finished his pint.’ He drank again.

‘Why do you think that was?’ The old man shrugged. ‘Did you notice anything unusual about the way he was behaving before he left?’

‘Not unusual, no. He’s always a stroppy little sod. And he’s a bastard to the girl.’ He closed his eyes and threw his head back, thinking. ‘She wasn’t here yesterday, so he had a go at Ray instead. They were having a bit of a barney.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘I thought the little swine was going to hit him.’ He cackled and rocked in his seat. ‘Ray’s twice his size. Ought to punch his lights out. Serve him right.’ He turned his attention to his glass. ‘A half doesn’t go far, does it?’

‘What were they arguing about?’ No answer. The old man raised his empty glass and gazed at her mournfully. She nodded at Peterson who brought another half over. The old man smacked his lips.

‘Ray was assaulted on his way home –’ Geraldine began.

‘Vicious little swine,’ Bert interrupted her. ‘You lot going to lock him up then?’ His eyes gleamed wetly at her across the table. It was Geraldine’s turn to shrug. ‘He’s a nasty little sod, that one.’ He tapped Cal’s picture again. ‘You’ve got to do something about him before he kills someone.’

Geraldine stared into the old man’s eyes. ‘If you have any information on Callum Martin, you need to tell us.’ The old man was silent. Geraldine stood up. ‘We’ll talk to you again, Bert,’ she said.

They walked back down Garden Street, past houses uniformly grey in the fading daylight. Streetlamps were already on, casting a dim orange glow. A car rattled past, along an otherwise deserted street.

‘Time was there would’ve been children playing out in the street,’ Geraldine remarked. ‘Kicking a football, riding their bikes.’

‘And women sitting on doorsteps.’

‘Bit cold for that.’

Brenda opened the door. She started when she saw Geraldine and Peterson and closed her mouth tightly, compressing a cold sore at the corner of her bottom lip. She didn’t speak. As she made to close the door, Peterson stepped forward.