Death's Privilege (23 page)

Dales had driven around in circles. His shift had ended hours ago. His dinner, a half-eaten chicken wrap from the twenty-four-hour Tesco, sat on the passenger seat next to the file of Dibbles’s runners photos. He drove down Talbot Road, turned left along The Crescent and came out on Alexandra Avenue. He eyeballed everyone: commuters returning home, dog walkers, and kids on the street corner; he didn’t recognise any of them. This was Dibbles’ patch and his boys would be out plying their illicit trade somewhere.

He turned the corner onto Bell Lane. A familiar male in his mid-twenties walked towards him on the other side of the road. He opened the file and sifted through the photos until the same face looked back up at him. Dales glanced in his mirror; the male kept walking. He drove in a loop until he was in front of him again and stopped the car in the middle of the road. He stepped out, not saying a word until he had his hands on him.

‘Get the fuck off me, man.’ The male struggled. He was wiry, a whippet not a fighter. Dales’ tempered grip latched him in place.

‘Settle down. I just need you to do something for me.’

‘Do something for you? I ain’t no rent boy. You a cop?’

‘I’m looking for a friend. You’re going to help me find him.’ Producing police identification before engaging with the public wasn’t an aspect of current procedure Dales had chosen to adopt.

‘I don’t know none of your friends.’

Dales held his arm tighter and patted him down until he found his phone.

‘Whatcha doin’?’

‘Call Dibbles.’

‘I don’t know—’

Dales twisted his wrist, causing his whole body to move. ‘Getting tired of hearing about what you don’t know, let’s talk about some things you do. You know I can break your wrist and you know making the call will encourage me not to.’ He put the phone in his right hand.

‘A’ight, a’ight.’ He took the phone and in a few swipes, Dales could hear it ringing. ‘Hello. Got someone who wants to talk to you. I don’t know.’ He looked up at Dales as best he could from his twisted position. ‘Who are ya?’

‘Detective sergeant Dales. Tell him I’m calling in my favour.’

The pub closed long before Joel came back out. Sarah stood sheltered from the rain at a bus stop further along the road. Wind shot through the street chilling her damp hair, and her jeans were soaked from her frantic run across the road. The pounding rain showed no sign of stopping and with her battery down to a red sliver, the chances of calling a cab home were getting remote. She needed to stay. She needed to find out why Joel was suddenly familiar with the door staff and going in through The Candy Club’s back entrance. The best way was to confront him as he left.

She folded her arms and stamped her feet to stave off the cold. A cab pulled up outside. Three men came out and got in the backseat. Still no Joel, although cabs began coming more often as closing time approached.
Surely it can’t be much longer.
Another cab slowed down and there he was. Joel came outside and waved at the driver from the shelter of the doorway before stepping out onto the pavement. He raised his hand, shielding what he could of the rain, and opened the back door. Sarah ran towards the cab and managed to open the other door before it drove away.

‘What the hell?’ The cabbie turned around as she sat in the backseat. ‘Who the hell are you?’

Joel twisted his body towards her, looking ready to defend himself if necessary. His face changed as he recognised who it was, from tense to absolute fear.

‘It’s okay. We know each other.’ Sarah was a little out of breath from the short but urgent run.

The cab driver turned as far as he could towards Joel. ‘You know this woman?’

‘Yeah. I do.’

‘Alright. Nearly gave me a heart attack.’ He put the car into gear and drove away.

Joel relaxed a little and Sarah got her breath back. She’d waited around for him so long, but hadn’t thought what to say when she saw him.
Maybe he just wanted to see some strippers and this is about to be the most embarrassing conversation I’ll ever have.

‘What are you doing here?’ He looked a little angry, like his parents had arrived a little too early to collect him from the park.

‘Just about to ask you the same question.’

‘You spying on me?’

‘No.’ She was conscious that cab drivers had little else to do all night aside from listen to their passengers’ conversations. The cabbie gave them a glance in his rear view mirror and smiled on one side of his mouth.
I’m not his psycho girlfriend, you know.

‘Then what? You’ve just burst into my cab in the middle of the night. One-word answers aren’t going to cut it.’

They pulled up at the lights. The rain lashed down on the roof and the strong wind gently rocked the car. Sarah didn’t want to have the conversation here. Careless conversations had been the death of many a good investigation and she imagined two coppers talking about Mavenswood’s seedy underworld would be far more interesting than anything the cabbie’s colleagues had to say back at the taxi rank.

‘I’ve got some things to tell you. About what we’re working on. There’s more to it.’

‘And it can’t wait until we’re back at work?’

‘No. It can’t.’

Joel’s flat was modest. Sarah had expected it to be more glamorous, more masculine and minimalist. Maybe black leather sofas and furniture, with white walls and some monochrome photos on the wall. Something suitable for a successful playboy in his late twenties. Instead, it was a plain. They sat in the lounge on brown sofas and surrounded by blank cream walls. There was a photo of an old, portly lady with greying hair with her arm around a mid-teens Joel on a side table next to the armchair.

‘Is that Mummy Johnson?’

‘It was.’

He looked distant for a moment. ‘So, now we’re alone. What’s all this about? What were you doing there tonight?’

Sarah wanted to ask him the same question, but that wouldn’t have got her anywhere. Joel was a proud man and firing questions at him about his nightly activities was apt to encourage his silence. ‘I was watching the club. Leilani is linked to something. Something personal. I wanted to see if someone was going in and out.’

Joel waited for her to continue for a few awkward moments. ‘And this was sanctioned surveillance?’

‘I happened to be having dinner across the road. And it’s not entirely work related.’

‘Wait, wait, wait. Something personal? Watching the club off duty? This doesn’t sound like you. What’s going on?’

He wasn’t about to let her get away with glossing over it. She’d burst into his cab in the middle of the night; the least she could do was offer an explanation as to why. ‘It all starts with Leilani. The girl from The Candy Club? She came to the station to report her lover had assaulted her. She didn’t want to make a formal complaint, just wanted it logged in case it got worse.’

‘Leilani? A victim of DV?’

‘Yeah. Why is that so strange?’

‘Go on. I’ll let you finish.’ He looked edgy. His hands fidgeted in his lap and his right foot slid behind the left, crossing on the floor.

‘Leilani refused to give me a name, but did provide bank details for her abuser.’

‘Bank details?’

‘He’d been taking money from her.’

‘In the most traceable way possible?’

‘I asked her about that, she put it down to arrogance. The bank details belonged to my husband.’

Joel put his head in his hands.

‘We went to The Candy Club the other night and …. And, well, we know what happened. The next day, someone sent an email to my account. With photos. Of us. I went back there and, given the angle and the approximate distance, it’s likely they were taken from behind the curtain on the stage. Someone backstage at the club took those shots and, although they didn’t come with a demand, the only reason I can think of is to blackmail us.’

She logged into her email account on her phone and handed it to him. The battery died while he was looking at them, but his sour expression told her he’d seen enough.

‘Listen, I’ve got to—’ He stood up and put his hands on the side of his head. ‘You need to listen. Leilani’s no victim.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘To everything.’ He sat back down and let out a long sigh. ‘I know Leilani. Knew her before that night at The Candy Club. I met her online. A dating site: True Connections. I kept meeting the same kind of women in bars, so thought I’d try a different tack.’ He was rambling. Sarah was eager for him to get to the point, but whatever he had to say, it was clearly hard for him to deal with and impatience on her part would only hinder that process. ‘We went out a couple of times. She didn’t use that name. She went by Naomi. I guess using false names when online dating is a common precaution. She took me back to The Candy Club. To one of the private rooms in the back. We drank and she must have put something in my drink, as I passed out.

‘I don’t remember a thing. Didn’t need to. She’d recorded it all, so I know exactly what happened in that room. Some things you can’t unsee, you know.’

‘If we’re going to deal with this woman, we need to be honest about everything.’ Sarah was tired of being lied to.

‘Wait. I’m getting there.’ Joel held his hand up, asking for patience. His confidence subsided. When they’d met, she’d thought he was unshakable. Her work colleague and her opposite in so many ways. ‘I lay there. I don’t remember removing my clothes, but I was face down and naked. My head was to the side, resting on my hands, as if waiting for a massage. A girl came in, wearing far less than she should have been, and went to work.’

‘Joel, I don’t need the details danced around. From seeing what they allow onstage, I can picture the seediness of the back rooms.’ His story as it stood didn’t warrant his sullen look. Either she was less prudish than she thought or Joel wasn’t the tall-striding, womanising hunk of man people took him for.
For a lot of guys, this sounds like a good night out.

‘She rubbed oil all over me. She was young.’

‘Young?’

‘Fourteen. Fifteen max, I’d say.’

‘What? Are you sure?’

His face told her that however he knew, he was satisfied of the fact. ‘It’s clear as day on the footage. There’s no mistaking it.’

‘But you were passed out? Surely it shows you not moving at all?’ She scrambled for anything in her colleague’s defence.

‘I don’t remember any of it. That’s the truth. I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but that’s the truth. Not that anyone would believe it. A half-cut copper filmed getting a naked massage from an underage girl. Not just anything, that. I’ll be hung out to dry and slammed in a cell. I’m sure you know what they do to coppers in prison and I’m damn sure you know what they do to sex offenders. I’ll lose everything.’ He looked at the photo of his mother. ‘All for a stupid mistake.’

‘Mistake? You can’t blame yourself. You didn’t know what was going on.’

‘Trusting Leilani was the mistake. Getting in that position was the mistake.’

‘Do you know where that girl is? We need to tell the Child Protection Team as soon as possible. Why’d she do it?’ Sarah had so many questions, and she hoped Joel had the answers.

‘I don’t. Only ever saw her on the recording. Leilani threatened to release the footage if I didn’t do as she said. I gave her thousands. She then wanted me to keep tabs on someone. On you.’

‘Me?’

‘She wanted to know when you were at work, when you left the office, when you came back and everything in between. Those photos. Those photos were a set-up.’

‘What? You knew that was happening?’

‘I had no choice. What did you want me to do? She’s never more than a couple of clicks away from sticking that damn video online.’ His fist slammed the armrest. ‘There was nothing I could do.’

‘You could have told Hayward or Dales. You could have told me.’

‘And what did you do when it got personal? Run straight to Dales? The behaviour code slides under the carpet once the thumbscrews tighten, doesn’t it? Hayward? Do you really expect me to go to him, hamburger in hand, and ask for help?’

‘Is this why you were eager for MCT to take the case?’

‘The less I had to do with it, the more distance I could get from her.’

He was right. She’d thought Joel was a confident and unshakable police officer, and nothing she’d heard tonight had changed that. But this was Joel the man, the human being. Scared, alone and in a situation from which he saw no escape. She wished he were wrong, that people would believe him and believe he couldn’t recall the events of that night, but they wouldn’t. He was, as Dales would say, bang to rights if that video were ever released. Leilani had him and there was no certainty she’d ever let go. Sarah needed to link this all together and put a stop to it. Before that, she needed an answer to the most pressing question.

‘Why me?’

‘I’m a man of my word. Name what you need.’ Dibbles shielded his cigarette from the wind and flicked his lighter. The light from the flame exposed his pockmarked skin. His hands had a permanent shake. They’d agreed to meet on the hill in Amblin Park, Mavenswood’s highest point. The lights of the town below attracted young lovers to the viewpoint in the summer months, but cold, damp autumn evenings left it empty.

Dibbles held out a cigarette.

‘Trying to quit.’ Dales stood with his hands in the pockets of his dark grey peacoat, collar flapping in the breeze.

‘No one really quits, Steve. We just change our poison.’

‘Then poison must be good business.’ Dales looked straight at him. Dibbles was an old hand and couldn’t be given an inch.

‘We’ve all got to pay the bills. How you doing that these days? Inspector? DCI?’

‘Tutoring detectives. Passing on the skills I learned from locking you up.’

‘That’s cold.’ Dibbles drew a deep breath of moist evening air and spread his arms. ‘You know, this is a funny-looking cell you’ve got me in. And, if you must know, the poison business is booming.’

‘I’m here about Moretti.’

‘Sally-Anne? What about her?’

‘Still see much of her?’