The Cold Hand of Malice (21 page)

‘And did you find any money?’

The boy shook his head. ‘It was about then that this bloke came in. He must have come in quietly, because all of a sudden he was there in the room and he had hold of Chloe, and she was screaming at him.’

‘So what did you do?’

The colour deepened in the boy’s face. ‘I took off,’ he said so quietly that Paget had to ask him to repeat it for the tape. ‘Well there was no point in hanging around, was there?’ he said, trying to justify his actions. ‘I mean this bloke had Chloe and there was nothing I could do about it, was there?’

‘And you ran straight into the arms of Mrs Grey.’

‘I got caught up in the hedge, and she got this sort of hammer-lock on me. I couldn’t move.’

‘What happened then?’

‘We went back into the house and she rang the police.’

‘How did she manage that while still holding onto you?’

‘She wasn’t. She told me to sit in a chair and stay there, so I did.’

‘What was Chloe doing while this was going on?’

‘Spitting and screaming, mostly, but she wasn’t getting anywhere. He was a big bloke.’

Tregalles came back into the room, and Paget announced his re-entry for the benefit of the tape. ‘They’re on their way,’ Tregalles said, referring to the car in Hatch Lane. ‘And we have a car that matches the description reported stolen from a car park earlier this evening.’

‘Right. In that case, I think we’ve almost finished here for the time being,’ said Paget. ‘Just one more thing, Terry, before we wrap it up. You told us that your parents are on holiday in Switzerland. Is that true?’

The boy eyed him suspiciously as he nodded.

‘Yes or no, please, Terry. The tape doesn’t record nods.’

Coleman swallowed noisily. ‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely.

‘And I’m sure they left a number where they could be reached in case of an emergency. Right?’

Coleman looked as if he wished he could sink through the floor. ‘Do you really
have
to?’ he pleaded. ‘Dad will kill me.’

‘We won’t let him do that,’ Paget told him, ‘but we do have to notify him, so let’s have it, Terry. Where is he and how can we get hold of him?’

Chloe Tyler was a stocky girl, well-developed for her age. She wore a faded blue anorak over a tight-fitting black jumper and short skirt. Her legs were bare, but her feet were clad in scuffed black trainers with most of the tread worn off. Paget wouldn’t have described her as a pretty girl, but with long black hair, dark, satin-like skin, and even darker, predatory eyes, there was an aura of sexuality about the girl, and he could well imagine how someone as young and naive as Terry Coleman would be attracted to her like a moth to an open flame.

As Broughton had said, Chloe had been in trouble with the police often enough to be familiar with the routine, and she hotly denied almost everything Terry Coleman had told them. She said it was his idea to enter the house, and she was scared of what he might do to her if she didn’t go along with him. As for the leaf-spring, she claimed she’d never seen it before Terry took it out from under his coat to use on the back door.

How was it, then, Paget asked, that she had had it in her hands and hit Grey with it when he was trying to detain her?

‘Terry dropped it when he ran, didn’t he?’ she said blandly. ‘Snivelling little coward. Forced me into going with him then ran like a bloody rabbit as soon as there was trouble. I picked it up when I saw this big bloke coming at me. It was self-defence. I thought he was going to kill me.’

‘Speaking of killing,’ Paget said, ‘is that the weapon you used on Mrs Holbrook? The one you killed her with?’

‘Killed?’ Even Chloe appeared to be shaken by that. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She turned to Carmichael. ‘What’s he on about?’ she demanded. ‘Is this a wind-up or what?’

‘He is very serious,’ the solicitor told her. ‘The police are investigating the death of a woman who was killed during the course of a burglary.’

Chloe gaped at him. ‘And you’re just sitting there like a bloody great dummy while they fit me up for it? You’re supposed to be working for me, remember, and I had nothing to do with anybody being killed, so tell him. Go on, do your job and bloody tell him!’

‘I take it, then, that you’ve changed your mind,’ Carmichael said. ‘Are you prepared to talk to me now?’

‘Well, I’m not going to bloody sit here and let them fit me up for murder,’ the girl declared, ‘so, yeah – but I don’t want them listening.’

Carmichael looked at Paget. ‘I’d like a few of minutes alone with Miss Tyler before we continue,’ he said, then nodded in the direction of the WPC who was seated just inside the door. ‘The WPC can stay, of course.’ Having the WPC remain was as much for his own protection as it was a safeguard for the girl. Some females weren’t above accusing their assigned solicitors of sexual harassment if they thought it might gain sympathy when they appeared in court.

The recorder was turned off, and Paget and Tregalles withdrew until some ten minutes later when Carmichael came to the door to say they were ready to continue. Back in the room with the recorder turned on, Carmichael said he would like to make a statement for the record.

‘Miss Tyler categorically denies any knowledge whatsoever of the killing of Mrs Holbrook,’ he said. ‘She denies ever having entered the house in Pembroke Avenue, and claims to know nothing of that crime. In fact, she has an alibi for the evening of March fourth. She claims that—’

‘I don’t
claim
anything,’ the girl broke in angrily. ‘I was
there
at the hospital getting sewn up.’ She pulled up her sleeve to reveal a six-inch long gash, and marks still red where stitches had been. ‘See? You ask them at the hospital. They’ll tell you. Sat there half the bloody night bleeding all over the floor before they got round to me. Had the stitches out yesterday.’

‘I see,’ said Paget. ‘That looks like a knife wound to me. How did that happen?’

The girl shrugged. ‘Don’t remember,’ she said, meeting his eyes defiantly.

‘Was anyone else injured at the same time? Were there any witnesses to what happened?’

‘Like I said, I don’t remember.’

Paget turned to Tregalles. ‘Check with the hospital and see if they can verify that Miss Tyler was there last Wednesday evening. They should have a record of the time she was booked in. Meanwhile,’ he continued as Tregalles left the room, ‘regardless of where you were last Wednesday, Chloe, let’s talk about the rest of the burglaries, beginning with the one in Dunbar Road.’

Eighteen

Thursday, March 12

Almost everything they found in Chloe’s squat in the basement of a boarded-up warehouse on King George Way, together with the clothes she was wearing at the time of her arrest, was turned over to Forensic for examination.

The girl had steadfastly denied taking part in any of the burglaries, and yet Paget had found her responses revealing as he went through each location. While she denied knowing anything about the burglary on Dunbar Road, she did so in an almost offhanded way, a programmed response by someone well-versed in the judicial system: deny everything in the hope that the police wouldn’t find enough evidence to make the charges stick. But when Paget moved on to the one in Abbey Road and the rest, Chloe became quite agitated and vehement in her denials.

‘I don’t even know where some of those streets are, so don’t think you’re going to pin those jobs on me! And I don’t know anything about any murder, either.’

Despite her record, Paget was inclined to believe her. He’d checked the list of stolen items against those found among the girl’s possessions in the squat, and while much of the stuff had probably been stolen at one time or another, the only items that matched his list were the brooches and pendants taken from the house in Dunbar Road. Not a single item listed as missing from the rest of the homes could be found. And the hospital records confirmed Chloe’s story about having the deep cut on her arm attended to on the night Laura Holbrook was killed.

To say that Paget was surprised when Joshua Davenport was brought in would be an understatement. Terry Coleman had described the man reasonably well, but the image conjured up in Paget’s mind was quite different from that of the man who sat across the table from him now.

Davenport had form, petty stuff, most of it drug-related in one way or another. Four convictions for possession, two acquittals, one conviction for theft, and one for being drunk and disorderly in a public place.

‘Hardly the record you’d expect of a twenty-eight-year-old Cambridge man, who has a PhD after his name,’ Ormside observed as he handed the sheet to Paget. ‘Still, takes all sorts, I suppose. Seems like he was coming off an all-night session with some friends when we picked him up, though God knows how someone like him has friends among the Gypsies. He’s not what you might call fit, but the doc says we can question him.’

Davenport was tall and thin to the point of emaciation. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes pale and watery. He looked as if he had a cold, his nose was red, and he dabbed at it as unobtrusively as possible from time to time with a wad of tissues concealed in his hand. But his hair was neatly combed, and most surprising to Paget was the fact that Davenport was wearing a suit, white shirt and tie. The suit was old and threadbare, and the sleeves of the jacket were too short for his long arms, but the material was clearly of excellent quality. The shirt was yellowing with age, and the tie was fraying at the ends, but the overall impression was of someone who was doing his best to maintain a semblance of dignity despite being down on his luck.

He sat upright in the chair, feet tucked beneath it, perhaps trying to hide the fact that he was wearing worn and ragged trainers rather than shoes. He watched calmly, waiting until Ormside, sitting in for Tregalles, had the recorder up and running before he said, ‘May I say something for the record before we begin?’

‘Of course, bearing in mind that you are still under caution,’ Paget told him.

Davenport nodded perfunctorily. ‘As I’m sure you know, having read my file, I am well acquainted with the procedure, so there is no need to waste time on that. Also, I do not wish to have a solicitor present. It’s been my experience that most of them are neither interested in someone like me, nor are they particularly competent, and I find I spend less time in confinement when I plead guilty and throw myself on the mercy of the court, than I do if they try to defend me. So, if it’s all right with you, can we cut to the chase, as they say?’

He paused to eye Paget speculatively before continuing. ‘I take it you have been talking to Chloe, since she is the only one who knew where I would be. Tell me, did she do another job?’

‘I can tell you that Miss Tyler and another young person are helping us with our enquiries into certain matters,’ Paget said neutrally.

‘Another young person?’ Davenport looked pained. ‘It must be young Coleman,’ he said with an air of resignation, then closed his eyes and shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Oh, Chloe,’ he said softly as if speaking to the girl herself, ‘will you never learn?’

Paget had the feeling that control of the interview was beginning to slip away from him. Davenport would take over if he didn’t step in now.

‘You mentioned pleading guilty,’ he said a little more sharply than he’d intended. ‘Is that what you wish to do in this case?’

‘Ah! Now that rather depends on what you intend to charge me with, doesn’t it, Chief Inspector? I mean, all Chloe and I were doing really was looking for a bit of spare change. I’ll admit there was some peripheral damage, but—’

‘
Peripheral
damage? Oh, no, Mr Davenport, I’m afraid it’s far more serious than that. You and Miss Tyler are looking at some very serious charges: five burglaries, theft, criminal damage and murder.’

‘Murder?’ Davenport’s voice rose sharply, the bantering tone suddenly gone. ‘You can’t be serious? And
five
burglaries? That’s utterly ridiculous! I may be guilty of a bit of pilfering, and possibly – I say
possibly
– what you call burglary, but only out of necessity when I have no other means of support. But I have never hurt anyone in my life, so let’s get this misunderstanding cleared up now.’

‘There is no misunderstanding,’ Paget told him, ‘so I suggest you stop trying to treat this as if it’s some sort of schoolboy prank. These are serious charges, and I think you would be wise to reconsider your position regarding whether or not you wish to have a solicitor present.

‘Oh, yes, and Forensic will need your clothes – all of them.’

‘Strange sort of bloke,’ Ormside mused, referring to Josh Davenport when he and Paget were reviewing the transcripts at the end of the day. ‘But then if he’s one of that lot from Cambridge, what can you expect? And he really doesn’t like solicitors, does he? Not even after you warned him several times that he could be facing serious charges. Good job
that’s
on the tape.’

In Davenport’s opinion, solicitors went out of their way to make relatively simple matters more complicated than they really were, and the result rarely had anything to do with justice, so he wanted no part of them. He stuck to the story regarding the burglaries. He admitted to breaking into the house on Dunbar Road with Chloe, but only, he claimed, because they were hungry and desperate. He said they had left Broadminster two days later for Chester, which was exactly what Chloe Tyler had told them. He and Chloe had gone to stay with a friend of his from his Cambridge days, now doing postgraduate work at the university there. Normally, Davenport told them, he would not have imposed on his friend’s good nature, but he needed a place to stay until he felt well enough to try for another job, and had asked his friend if he could bring Chloe with him because she had been good to him while he was ill, and they were both flat broke.

The day staff had gone and the incident room was quiet except for the burbling gasps of Ormside’s coffee pot.

‘I can’t see those two committing a murder,’ Ormside said as he closed the file. ‘They’re not even very good at thieving, and young Coleman certainly isn’t cut out for it.’