Scene of Crime (17 page)

That seemed a reasonable compromise, he told himself. He would only be setting the police on Watson if he was absolutely forced to, and then even if Estelle had invented the whole story, he wouldn’t feel so bad about it.

No comment, no comment, no comment. That was all Ryan Chester was saying, and Tom was growing more and more frustrated. He’d had his wife moaning at him first thing about his never being home, received a bollocking from his chief inspector, was accused of looking like a loan shark’s muscle by a debt collector, of all people, and had now had more than enough. Proper procedure was all very well, but why did only one side in this game have to stick to the rules?

That’s all it was to people like Stan and Ryan—a game. Like having to answer questions without saying yes or no. Keep saying no comment and the chances are they won’t even be able to charge you: that was the advice people like Stan gave to their clients. A woman had died in that burglary, and he was sitting here playing this
stupid game with this yob and his legal adviser. Well, all right, if they wanted to make a game of it, that was fine by him.

He smiled. “All right, Ryan, I’ll ask you the easy questions—the ones you don’t have to phone a friend about.”

Ryan looked wary; Stan glanced at Lloyd.

“By my reckoning, London Road is about a ten-minute walk through the wood from the rear of Windermere Terrace. With your knowledge of the area, would you agree?”

Ryan sighed. “Yes.”

“Very good. Now, if you were running instead of walking—what do you think?”

“Five, six minutes.” Ryan looked uneasy, but he had answered, which was something.

“I agree. So let’s see how you do on this one. Five minutes from eight-thirty?”

“Eight twenty-five,” said Ryan in a bored tone, looking down at the table and tracing the pattern on the Formica with his finger.

“And at around eight-fifteen last night, someone broke into number 4 Windermere Terrace, bound and gagged Estelle Bignall, and threw a few things in a black plastic bag. That needn’t have taken more than about ten minutes, need it? She was very small and slim—it wouldn’t take very long to deal with her. So if that someone left number 4 Windermere Terrace at about 8:25 and ran, they would arrive in London Road at about eight-thirty. Right?”

Ryan shrugged.

“Now, Ryan—take your time. Your brother was seen
running away from the scene, and has admitted being there. You have admitted selling items stolen from the house. Most of the rest of it was found on premises rented by your mother, and one item was found in the car that was stolen from London Road at eight-thirty. Now, you don’t have to answer the next question, but listen to it and the four possible answers before you decide.”

“Chief Inspector,” said Stan.

Lloyd could hardly accuse him of being aggressive this time, Tom thought, looking at Lloyd. And if he was in trouble again, he didn’t care. He’d had enough of this whole business.

“Yes, Mr. Braithwaite?” said Lloyd.

Stan sighed and shook his head. “Forget it,” he said wearily, and gestured with his hand for Tom to carry on.

“Thank you,” said Tom. “The question is, Ryan, did you break into number 4 Windermere Terrace? Is the answer: A, Yes, I did; B, No, but my brother did and asked me to stash the gear; C, No, the man whose car I took must have done it; or D, No, my mother did it?”

He saw Ryan glance at Stan, but he had outlined his reasons for offering that as a possibility; Ryan couldn’t complain about that. Stan let it pass, but predictably advised Ryan not to answer.

“Okay, Ryan,” said Tom. “You’ve used your phone-a-friend lifeline. But before you decide what to do, don’t forget you’ve still got your fifty-fifty. Would you like me to take away two wrong answers? C is wrong because we know exactly where the owner of the car was all evening, and D is wrong because your mum was out doing an honest evening’s work, unlike you.”

This time Stan cleared his throat and tried to look important,
but failed miserably. “Chief Inspector Lloyd, are you going to allow your sergeant to continue to make a mockery of this interview?” he asked.

Lloyd knew Stan as well as Tom did. Stan wasn’t offended by the tone of the interview—he much preferred it not to get heavy. He just liked to break up the questioning when he could. But Lloyd had said he wouldn’t back him up again if he stepped out of line; Tom sat back and waited to see what he did.

Lloyd seemed to bring his thoughts back from the other side of the world, and smiled in a vague way at Stan. “Sergeant Finch’s style may not be mine,” he said, “but the answers are perfectly valid explanations, either one of which your client is at liberty to offer, if he chooses not to take your advice.”

“But how can I pick one when the—” Ryan broke off. “No comment,” he said.

Shit. Ryan’s ankle would be black and blue at this rate, thought Tom. He’d make sure they were sitting a lot farther apart in the next interview. “Is that your final answer?” he asked. “You’ve still got a lifeline left, Ryan.”

Ryan looked up, his face faintly amused. “Ask the audience?” He shook his head. “No thanks, Mr. Finch,” he said, then nodded toward Stan. “He doesn’t believe me any more than you do, so I know what the answer would be.”

“You’ve got a fourth option, Ryan,” Tom said. “You can tell the truth.”

“I have told the truth. I found these things. But you want to get someone for killing Mrs. Bignall, and you’ve got me and Dex, so that’s all you care about.”

“All right, Ryan,” Tom said. “You tell me where you
found the proceeds of the burglary, and in what circumstances, and I’ll listen.”

Ryan looked back at him for a moment, unsure of what to do; he knew all the interviewing techniques, and was rightly suspicious of any sudden change of tack. But after some consideration, he nodded briefly. “All right.”

“Ryan, you might want to—” began Stan No Comment Braithwaite, but Ryan waved his advice away.

“I found them in the wood. In a black plastic sack. I couldn’t believe it. A sackful of Christmas presents. Some of them were even wrapped. It was like you said—I was looking round for Rudolph to turn up. Thought it must be one of these TV setups or something.”

Tom didn’t believe him, but he humored him. “And what were you doing in the wood, Ryan?”

“I was just out for a walk.”

“Ryan,” said Lloyd, his voice quiet, forestalling Tom’s angry response, “Sergeant Finch has said he’ll listen to you, so you listen to me. We are not going to sit here and be told nonsense. Whatever you were doing there can’t possibly be as serious as what you are suspected of doing, so do yourself a favor. Forget the habit of a lifetime and just tell us the truth.”

Ryan glanced at Stan, who shrugged.

“Okay,” Ryan said. “I was after a car. I’d been asked to get hold of a Saab, and I spent all day trying to find one. I finally saw one parked in Eliot Way.”

“The service road behind Windermere Terrace?”

“Yes.”

“So we pull up at the end of the road—”

“We?” Tom said.

Ryan sighed. “A mate was driving me round.”

“Who? Baz?”

Ryan ran a hand through his hair, and had an argument with himself about how much of the truth he should tell. “Yeah, all right, it was Baz. He drove me. But that’s all he did. He didn’t know what I intended doing.”

“Oh, right,” said Tom, grinning at the official wording Ryan had used. “He thought you were just—what? Taking a tour of Malworth?”

“Yes. That’s not against the law, is it? When I saw the Saab, I said I had something to do and he should just go home. So he did.”

Tom shook his head, giving up on that. “Go on, then,” he said.

“I’m just about to break into the Saab when I hear a noise, and then a light comes on—some sort of security light. So I hid.”

“What sort of noise?” asked Lloyd.

Ryan frowned. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Like—Like rubble being moved, or something.”

“Could it have been a pile of bricks collapsing?”

Ryan’s face cleared. “Yes,” he said. “It could.”

“Where did you hide?” Tom asked.

“In the wood. And I hear someone get into the car, and after a couple of minutes it drives off. So I come back out of the wood, and that’s when I found the sack. I fell over it.”

Tom threw his pen down in disgust. “Oh, right,” he said. “And you expect us to believe that? Someone else conveniently burgled the house for you and dumped the proceeds at your feet?”

Ryan shrugged. “No. I knew you wouldn’t believe me. But it’s what happened.”

Lloyd seemed to be taking it seriously. “Are you saying
the sack wasn’t there when you went into the wood?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It could have been. I didn’t see it—I fell over it, like I said. It was tucked under a sort of bush thing. I looked through the stuff, saw the Christmas presents and things, and—well, I reckoned if someone was chucking them away, I might as well have them. I walked through the wood, and that’s when I saw the car I took from outside the house in London Road.”

“You’re admitting that you took that car now?” asked Tom.

“Yes. You said you wanted the truth, and that’s what you’re getting.”

But this was the bit that didn’t quite add up, and he could prove that the little sod was lying. “You took this car at half past eight,” he said.

Ryan shrugged. “If you say so. I don’t know what time it was.”

“We know what time it was. It was only parked there for five minutes, from 8:25 to eight-thirty. So you would be about to break into the Saab at about what time in relation to when you stole the car?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes or so before that.”

“Around quarter past eight.” Tom leaned toward Ryan. “Dexter was there at around quarter past eight. He says he was in Eliot Way when he heard the window break. And he saw the light come on, just like you did. The problem is—he says he didn’t see you. How could he miss you?”

Ryan tried to rub the tension from the back of his neck. “He’s just saying that, Mr. Finch! He’s not going to tell you if he saw me trying to break into a car, is he?”

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Tom said. “I think the
reason Dexter didn’t see you breaking into a car is that you’re making all that up. When that light came on, you were inside the Bignalls’ house helping yourself to the presents under their tree. A sort of Santa Claus in reverse. And when Mrs. Bignall caught you and threatened to scream the place down—”

“No! I never went near Mrs. Bignall! I was trying to nick a Saab—it was a four-year-old 9000 turbo, and I can tell you the number, even. I was looking at it long enough.”

“Then tell us,” said Lloyd. He jotted it down, and looked up. “All right,” he said. “I think we could do with a break, and I suspect that Mr. Braithwaite might want to discuss your position with you, Ryan. Interview suspended 10:50
P.M
.”

Tom stopped the tape, furious with Lloyd for suspending the interview just then. You were always in with a shout when they disregarded their solicitor’s advice, and he’d gotten Ryan rattled before Lloyd had let him off the hook.

Out in the corridor, Tom took a deep breath so he wouldn’t say anything he would regret, and when he spoke, it was through his teeth. “Sir, why did you do that?”

Lloyd smiled. “Do you know you only call me sir when you really want to call me something much worse? You forget to do your TV cop act when you’re really fed up. No guv, no boss—it’s ‘Sir, why did you do that?’ It’s a bit of a giveaway.” He started walking toward the dispatch room.

“So why did you?” Tom demanded, catching up to him as he got to the door. “I was just getting somewhere with him.”

“Because,” said Lloyd, “I want to check the number Ryan gave us. I think Carl Bignall was still there at eight-fifteen.” He held up the piece of paper on which he’d written the number. “This might prove it.” He disappeared into the dispatch room.

Tom shook his head. Ryan Chester was as slippery as they came; they hadn’t been able to pin anything on him for over a year, despite the fact that he was very active indeed. He wouldn’t take his word for anything.

Lloyd came back out. “I think the row that Geoffrey Jones reported was between Bignall and his wife,” he said, “and it wasn’t coincidental to her death, because if it was, why did he lie about when he had left?”

“You haven’t got the registered owner yet,” Tom reminded him.

“It’ll be his. Do you want to bet? Carl Bignall put the finishing touches to the so-called burglary by breaking the window, and Dexter saw him.”

“Why didn’t Jones?” asked Tom.

“It would take Jones a moment to get into his bedroom and look out of the window,” said Lloyd. “By that time Dexter was at Watson’s gate, so Carl Bignall could certainly have left by his.”

True. Tom thought about that. Ryan ran into the wood, and Bignall came out of his gate, locked it, threw the sack into the wood, got into his car and left for the theater. He supposed it made sense of a sort.

“He didn’t get to that rehearsal until twenty-five to nine, and I’d bet my pension that the burglary was staged. You saw it, Tom! Drawers pulled out and upturned for no reason at all that I could see. Two artful presents left beneath the tree—the portable stereo, obviously dropped
when the intruder was disturbed. I was looking at a stage set, not a burglary!”

There was a big stumbling block, though. “You’ve got no evidence, sir,” Tom said.

“I’ve got a witness, if this car is Carl Bignall’s.”

“Ryan Chester?” Tom’s voice almost disappeared out of the top of his head with disbelief. “Ryan Chester is a liar, sir. And a burglar. And he had the stuff in his possession—he
sold
some of it!”

“I agree that Ryan isn’t the most credible witness in the world,” said Lloyd. “But we might have another one. Watson was there, too, remember.”

Tom made an exasperated noise. “Guv—that’s not a whole lot better. He’s got a record, and Judy Hill thinks he might have been overinterested in Estelle Bignall, remember. If he tried something on with Mrs. Bignall, and she knocked him back, he could be in the frame for this himself. He spooked Sarah Brightling, and I know her, guv—she doesn’t get the vapors because some guy makes suggestive remarks. And I told you I didn’t think he was giving us the whole strength about what was going down there last night. Anyway—how does an ex-cop who didn’t even get his thirty years in wind up living in a place like that?”