Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1) (18 page)

‘Well,
the handwriting’s not the neatest in the world, I grant you, but I reckon it
says “D. Pegley”. Bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’

He
wouldn’t say.

‘Especially
as the description we’ve got of the bloke selling the flute,’ Zoltan said, ‘is
you to a T.’

‘It weren’t
me. I never been in there.’

‘You
can honestly put your hand on your heart and tell me you weren’t in Meadow
Music five years ago selling a flute?’

‘Do
I look like I can play the flute?’

‘In
that case,’ Zoltan smiled, ‘you won’t mind giving me a sample of your
handwriting so I can have it compared to the receipt.’

While
Pegley was still staring at him, deciding what, if anything, to reply to this,
there was a knock at the door and DI Beaumont stuck his head round. Zoltan,
after a nod of assent from Baker, stood up.

‘Excuse
me for a moment,’ he said, smiling.

‘I am now,’ Zoltan
happily informed the recorder a few minutes later, ‘showing Mr Pegley a long,
thin, black leatherbound case, entered as exhibit number 24H.’ He watched as
first Baker, then a pale Darren Pegley examined the opened, empty case in its
plastic evidence bag. ‘Ever seen this before, Darren?’

‘No,’
Pegley said.

‘Are
you sure?’

‘Positive.’
Grumpily, he slapped it down into Zoltan’s outstretched palm. The DI took it
and put it on the table facing him.

‘I’m
now showing Mr Pegley the inside of the open case lid,’ he narrated, and smiled
icily. ‘Could you see your way clear to reading what the manufacturer’s label
says?’

‘You
what?’

‘Humour
me.’

‘It
says “B-O-H-M”.’

‘Now
what sort of thing would you say this was designed to hold?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Take
an educated guess.’

‘Very
long vibrator,’ Pegley said, with a leery glance at Baker.

Zoltan
waited for their mirth to subside. ‘Funny you should say that.’

Pegley
stopped grinning.

‘Had
a proper good look, did you, just now?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And
you, sir?’

Baker
nodded and made a noise of assent.

‘Better
put you out of your misery, then,’ Zoltan said. ‘We found out what it’s
supposed to hold. Not burglary equipment, which is what was in it when we found
it. That’s right, Darren, look relieved. It’s for a flute. An antique ivory
flute made by Böhm of Germany. To be precise, a flute used by two suspects to
assault its owner in Sutton in a five-year-old unsolved rape case, and
subsequently stolen by them.’ He fancied Pegley was showing signs of disquiet.
It was an emotion he often provoked, even in people he wasn’t accusing of
serious crimes, so he recognised it when he saw it. He pushed the case across
the table again. ‘Take a look underneath where it says Böhm, Darren,’ he
suggested. ‘See that little faded three-digit number? We’ve just contacted the
woman I told you about and she confirmed that’s the serial number of the stolen
flute. I’m intrigued,’ he pushed on relentlessly, ‘because it was that very
flute that turned up at Meadow Music. Remember?’

‘I’m
telling you it weren’t me.’

‘That’s
why I’m intrigued, you see, Darren,’ Zoltan said, still smiling. ‘Because we
found this case, with this manufacturer’s label and this serial number, hidden
in a big plastic box in the cold water tank in your flat. The landlord’s given
us the names of the previous tenants. None of them has a record for burglary,
Darren. But you do. And yet you’ve never seen this before. Intriguing, isn’t
it?’

Another
knock on the door made Pegley look up with a start. Zoltan thought this was a
good place to leave him hanging, so he excused himself again and switched off
the recorder.

Outside Anne White
greeted him with a triumphant beam. ‘Picked him out,’ she said, handing him a
piece of paper. ‘It was Pegley.’

Zoltan
raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. ‘I thought he was a bit hazy on the
details?’

‘He’s
had all night to think about it,’ Anne said. ‘He’s fairly certain.’

‘Fairly?’

She
shrugged. ‘Ninety per cent. But he IDed him straight away from the faces on
that page.’

‘And
this is Mr Gillam’s statement to the effect?’ Zoltan glanced at the paper.

‘Right.’

‘Ninety
per cent won’t be enough for the CPS.’

‘I
figured it might be enough for you,’ Anne said.

Zoltan
looked up with a reptilian smile.

‘How
well you know me,’ he said.

‘You’ll have
gathered from the frequent interruptions, Darren,’ he said, settling himself
back down, ‘we’ve got something else simmering besides you. Well, it’s just
come to the boil.’

He
put down the statement form, pointedly, out of the reach of Pegley and his
solicitor, turned to the recorder and pulled out two thumb drives, which he
sealed, signed and gave to Pegley to do the same, telling him that one would be
his to keep.

‘Is
that it, then?’ Baker said.

‘No,
it isn’t,’ Zoltan answered cheerfully, inserting two fresh thumb drives into
the recorder. ‘The reason I’m doing things this way is that new evidence has
come to light, as the saying goes, and because I’m a good boy who follows PACE
to the letter. So we’ll go again from scratch.’ Once more he started the
machine and identified the location and those present. ‘I’m questioning Mr
Pegley with regard to a burglary at 2 Langley Park Road, Sutton, five years
prior to the date of this interview, during which the occupant, Miranda Sally
Hargreaves, alleges she was raped. I’m bound to tell you, Mr Pegley, that I
suspect you of being involved in that crime, so I’m going to caution you again
before we continue.’

‘Five
years ago?’ Zoltan noted with satisfaction the paling of Pegley’s face, the
slackening of his jaw. ‘How the bleeding hell d’you expect - ?’

‘I
must warn you that you don’t have to say anything, but it may harm your defence
if you don’t mention now something you later rely on in court. Anything you do
say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?’

‘Yeah,
yeah.’ Pegley was still, desperately, trying to fathom what was going on.

‘Now
let me tell you what’s been happening while we’ve been in here.’ Zoltan settled
himself. ‘As you know, narcotics officers raided your flat in Glazebrook Road
early this morning. They arrested a Miss Colleen O’Dwyer - ’

‘She
ain’t got nothing to do with it,’ Pegley said, feebly.

‘ -
and found, among other things, the leatherbound wooden case you’ve previously
examined as exhibit 24H. It’s very noble of you to try and protect her,
Darren,’ Zoltan added, underlining that he’d forget nothing Pegley said, ‘but I
quote from your verbal of last night: “They ain’t mine, they’re my
girlfriend’s.” Your attack of chivalry’s come a bit late.’

He
paused, smiling at his own sarcasm, and then frowned.

‘This
is a copy of a statement,’ he announced, placing the form carefully on the
table facing Pegley, who sat staring at it as though it were a live frog, ‘made
a short while ago by a Mr Roy Gillam, who runs a business called Meadow Music.
Would you like to read it?’

‘May
I?’ Baker put his hand out to take the document with a glance at his client,
who nodded. The solicitor speed-read it, sighed and offered it back. Again
Pegley made no move to study it.

‘Perhaps
you’d like to mull it over for a while,’ Zoltan suggested.

‘I
don’t wanna read it.’

‘It’s
in your own best interests, Darren.’

Pegley
folded his arms and looked at the wall.

‘Here’s
an idea. I’ll tell you what it says.’ Zoltan drew the statement towards him and
adjusted his glasses. ‘Mr Gillam states that having studied a series of
photographs from criminal record files, photographs of young men similar in
appearance to yourself, he identifies you as the person who sold him an antique
ivory flute, subsequently discovered to be stolen. For the record,‘ he glanced
at the tape recorder, ‘that flute was the rightful property of Miranda
Hargreaves. Now are you sure,’ Zoltan said, pushing the statement over to
Pegley’s side of the table, ‘you don’t want to read it for yourself?’

A
change had come over his suspect. Slowly, but obviously trying to restrain
himself, Pegley took the form and read it carefully.

‘You
can’t prove nothing,’ he said at last, tossing it back. ‘It was fucking years
ago.’

‘It
certainly seems to have stuck in Mr Gillam’s mind.’

‘Yeah,
I bet,’ Pegley grunted.

‘Are
you saying none of this happened?’

Pegley
was saying nothing.

‘Did
you burgle number 2 Langley Park Road?’

‘No.’

‘Then
how,’ Zoltan came back at him, ‘did the flute’s case, which we found in your
flat, and which has your fingerprints on it, come to be there?’

‘I
bought it.’

‘Who
from?’

‘Can’t
remember.’

‘But
you definitely bought it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You
told me you’d never set eyes on the case, Darren.’

‘That
was before...’ He tailed off.

‘Before
I told you I suspected you of rape?’ Zoltan said with brutal mildness.

Pegley
said nothing. Zoltan could see him grinding his teeth.

‘I’ve
checked back in our files,’ he went on, ‘to see if anything else matches.
Nothing does. Not for that time period. No other stolen flutes, no other
burglars turned rapists. Now I’ve got Miss Hargreaves’s original statement,
which I’ll give you to look at, and the trouble is her description of the man
who raped her sounds a lot like you.’

‘So?’

‘So
there are too many coincidences,’ Zoltan said. ‘Like the flute being sold
shortly after the rape by yet another person who looked like you and who just
happened to countersign his receipt with your name and address.’

‘It
weren’t me,’ Pegley said.

‘Wasn’t
you who what? Beat that young woman up, forced her to strip, raped her, and
then as if that wasn’t humiliating enough, stuck her most precious possession,
her beloved flute, up her vagina? Who was it, then?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Do
you know a man named Michael Bayliss?’

A
flicker of something in Pegley’s expression, which Zoltan didn’t think was
surprise.

‘Was
Michael Bayliss your accomplice that night? Were you his?’

‘I
wasn’t there.’

‘Because
if Bayliss committed the rape, how come it was you, Darren, who ended up with
the flute?’

‘Inspector
Schneider,’ Baker interrupted, sitting up straight. ‘As my client has pointed
out a number of times, this alleged crime happened years ago, far beyond
reliable memory. Now if you have anything other than some flimsy identification
evidence which hasn’t the least chance of standing up in court, kindly produce
it if you’re planning to do anything other than trawl through ancient history.’

‘This
isn’t ancient history, Mr Baker,’ Zoltan said. He stared Pegley down. ‘Is it,
Darren?’

‘What
are you saying?’ Baker demanded.

‘There’s
evidence,’ Zoltan explained, still to Pegley, ‘linking this rape with at least
half a dozen similar incidents. All involving burglary. All involving the use
of a foreign object to sexually assault whichever woman was unlucky enough to
be in the house at the time.’

Pegley
had slid down in his chair.

‘Last
week an old lady in her nineties, in a retirement community, was attacked in
her bed with a nurse sitting at a desk not fifteen yards away. Can you
imagine?’ Pegley stared. ‘Maybe you don’t need to. This lady was beaten up and
raped with one of her own candlesticks. Ninety years old. What sort of person
does that?’

‘Mr
Schneider,’ Baker said, ‘I’d like to confer with my client in private for a few
minutes. Would that be possible, do you think?’

‘Yes,
of course,’ Zoltan said, as if the request hadn’t been rhetorical. ‘Interview
suspended.’

He found Jasmin in
the canteen, slumped beside a plate of scrambled eggs and a half empty mug of
cold black coffee. She was asleep, head resting on folded arms, mouth open.
Shaking his head, he left her there, bought himself coffee and wandered back
upstairs.

Anne
looked up from behind a clipboard. ‘Sophia wants you to ring her. Let her know
the SP.’ She peered knowingly at him. ‘I gather from your expression Gillam’s
statement might have done the trick?’

‘Possibly.’
He gave her hand a quick squeeze while no-one was looking. ‘Pegley’s closeted
with his brief now, no doubt concocting a version of the truth in which he
comes out smelling of roses.’