Snatched From Home: What Would You Do To Save Your Children? (DI Harry Evans Book 1) (20 page)

‘Victoria. Can I have a word?’ The way her face dropped when she recognised the speaker told Evans he’d just apprehended one of the thieves.

Before she could answer him, his mobile rang. Keeping a close eye on Victoria, Evans thumbed his keypad lock across and answered the call.

Lauren’s voice was breathless with excitement. ‘Guv. We’ve got a hit on the DNA from the blood found at the Drover’s Inn.’

‘Whose is it?’

‘A Jonathan Green. Last known address was a cottage on the outskirts of Alston. He’s nineteen years old…’

‘And his parents are called Eric and Jennifer.’ Evans kicked the reception counter. Eric and Jennifer Green were decent people; their lives would be torn apart if their son went down for murder.

‘Penrith CID are on their way to bring him in and they’ve asked me to do the interview.’

‘Thanks for letting me know. Keep me posted.’

Evans hung up the call and asked Victoria if there was somewhere where they could talk in private.

Jonny’s hands stung from the various cleaning fluids, a spot on his cheek burned where a splash of bleach had landed. Since returning from their expedition yesterday, he and Steve had spent hours cleaning the cottage in case any evidence had found its way into their home.

All he could focus on was the fact the police may well be coming for him. At best, he was an accessory to manslaughter, if such a charge even existed. At worst, he would face a murder charge. Time and again he’d cast a glance out of the window expecting to see police cars and a dozen burly coppers charging up the path. His nerves were shredded to the point of disintegration. Gone was his calm demeanour from the day before. All he could do now was smoke and worry.

When a knock on the door sounded, he jumped out of his chair. Answering the door Jonny found himself face to face with a man in a well-cut suit. In his hand was a wallet of some kind.

‘Good morning, sir. I’m DC Thompson. Are you Jonathan Green?’

‘Yes.’ All the previous day’s planning for this event washed from Jonny’s mind like driftwood being carried away by a high tide.

‘I have a few questions I’d like to ask you, Mr Green. Are you able to come down to Penrith Station with me?’

‘Can’t you ask me them here?’ Sweat formed on Jonny’s forehead but he resisted the urge to wipe it off, afraid the gesture would bring it to Thompson’s attention.

‘The fact you haven’t asked me what questions tells me that you know what I’m going to be asking.’ Licking his lips in a reflexive action, Thompson began to caution Jonny. ‘You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned—’

‘You’ve got it wrong. I didn’t do anything.’

Thompson finished the caution as he retrieved a pair of handcuffs from the holster on his belt.

Jonny continued protesting his innocence as Thompson led him to the waiting car. His brain was working on a different plane as he tried to figure out what was going to happen next.

His private queries were interrupted by Thompson asking where Steve was.

‘He’s in the shower.’

Thompson lifted a radio to his lips and relayed this information to what Jonny supposed was his backup.

Stay calm and remember the plan. Stay calm and remember the plan
.

Jonny kept repeating the mantra over and over all the way to Penrith. He’d been kept waiting until Steve had been rounded up and deposited in the car behind him. Just before driving off he’d seen some people dressed in white all-in-one suits entering the cottage. He guessed they were whatever the British equivalent of CSI was called. The stinging blotch on his cheek reassured him they’d find nothing.

Arriving at Penrith police station was an unnerving experience for Jonny. He was asked to identify himself by a sergeant behind a desk, his fingerprints were taken using some kind of scanner and he was readied for a cell. His watch, belt and shoelaces were collected along with his wallet and the contents of his pockets. His cigarettes and lighter joined the collection. What he wouldn’t have given to have a smoke to calm his nerves.

Settling himself down on the gym-mat-thin mattress on the concrete bed, Jonny prepared for a long wait. He’d watched enough police dramas on TV to know what was happening. The police would need time to build a case against him. Locking him in a cell was a tactic of theirs. They’d want him to panic. Become stressed out, so he incriminated himself. He would use the time to control his nerves and recall the plan. But the time spent in the cell was endless and boring. There was nothing to do but think about the trouble he was in and stare at the graffiti covering every wall, which on closer inspection revealed a roll call of names and dates of those who had preceded him.

The journey to get to Alston had been a marriage of controlled aggression and driving skill. Travelling via Brampton he’d thrashed the BMW as hard as he dared. The A689 curled and twisted its way up hill and down dale as it crossed the moors. On three occasions he’d missed oncoming traffic by inches as his overtaking manoeuvres became ever more desperate.

Entering the town, he had to fight to control the BMW when its rear-wheel drive came into contact with the wet cobbles on Front Street. Snaking up the hill, like an automotive sidewinder he found the street he was looking for.

This was not a task he was looking forward to, as his intentions were both honourable and dishonourable. He walked up the garden path of number twelve and knocked on the blue door. The colourful spring flowers brought a happiness to the surroundings that he was about destroy.

The door opened and Jennifer Green appeared. ‘DI Evans, what a lovely surprise. Come on in, I’ll get the kettle on.’ With that she disappeared into the house leaving Evans to find his own way in.

With a knot tightening in his stomach, Evans followed the rotund frame of the ardent churchgoer into the kitchen. Despite having time to arrange the words in his mind, he still hadn’t formulated a nice way of telling Jennifer her only son was facing a lengthy spell behind bars. He delayed the moment, until she had made tea for them both. She would need the restorative powers of Britain’s national drink.

As she made the tea, she twittered about how sorry Eric would be to have missed him, but he was in a meeting with their accountant, and filled him in on all the gossip of life in Alston.

‘I’m afraid it’s not a social visit today.’

‘What’s wrong? It’s not Eric is it? I keep telling him he drives too fast.’

‘It’s not Eric. It’s Jonny.’ Raising a hand he silenced her questions. ‘He’s gone and got himself into some real trouble this time, I’m afraid.’

‘There must be some mistake. My Jonny is a good lad. We brought him up to be a good person.

‘I’m sorry but there’s no mistake.’

‘Why what’s he done?’ As she spoke she walked across the kitchen and tore off a sheet of kitchen roll to dab at the tears beginning to form in the corners of each eye.

Evans eased himself into one of the chairs around the table and gestured for her to do the same.

‘A blood sample at a crime scene was collected and when we ran the sample against the database it turned out to be a positive match for Jonny.’

‘I’m sure that there must be some explanation.’ Jennifer wiped her eyes a second time. ‘So what’s he accused of, then? And where was the crime scene?’

With as much tenderness as he could muster, Evans informed her that the crime scene was the Drover’s Inn and the crime was murder.

‘No!’ The shouted word full of disbelief. ‘I don’t believe you. It can’t be. He wouldn’t kill anyone. He lifts spiders up using toilet paper and puts them outside instead of killing them. You’re wrong! How can you come into my house and tell me such lies?’

Twice her right hand went from forehead to navel and then across her chest. Jennifer no longer made any effort to wipe her tears. Instead she let them flow. Her head shook from side to side as she disputed the preposterous idea which Evans had planted into her brain.

‘I came to tell you because I didn’t want you to get a call from the station. Because I would rather tell you myself than let you hear it from some desk jockey at Penrith or from Jonny himself. He is going to need you to be at your best, to be strong for him.’

And because I want you to under my influence, so that Lauren can get the confession signed and sealed before your husband gets one of his high-powered lawyer friends sat beside Jonny.

He didn’t like what he was doing to prevent Eric Green riding to his son’s rescue. However, he knew that without the confession, a man in Eric’s position would be able to find a way to keep his errant son out of jail.

Her eyes scanned the room and she whirled around searching for a phone. ‘I have to call Eric. He’ll get a lawyer and get this all sorted out. You’ll see. You’re wrong.’

‘Come on, Jennifer. I’ll take you to see him at Penrith nick, you can find out for yourself what he has to say and then you can call Eric.’

As they travelled back to Penrith, Evans questioned Jennifer about Steve. He’d heard of Steve’s family. They’d had lived in Alston for many years, but he’d never met them. Steve’s father had been lifted a few times for drunken fights and petty misdemeanours.

‘It looks like he has got into the wrong crowd with this Steve.’

‘On the contrary. The apple fell a long way from that particular tree. Steve has been in and out of our house for years now and he is like a brother to Jonny.’ As with all mothers, Jennifer could not believe the baby she had nursed into manhood could be guilty of a heinous crime. In the short period she’d had to digest Evans’s news, she had gone from disbelief to denial in record time.

Evans escorted her into the station and took her straight to the custody suite. ‘Mark, can you give Mrs Green here a minute or two with Jonny.’

As the duty sergeant escorted Jennifer to Jonny’s cell, Steve Collinge was brought out of a cell, protesting his innocence, ‘It was all Jonny’s doing. I only went along to be a lookout.’

Regardless of all the police around her, Jennifer stepped forward and delivered a hard slap to Steve’s left cheek. ‘You liar. You’ve dragged my little boy into trouble and now you’re blaming him. He treated you like a brother and now you’re blaming him. You… you… shit!’

Despite his own foul tongue, Evans’s jaw dropped when he heard Jennifer Green lapse into profanity.

His phone started to ring. It was Grantham. Wisely Evans moved the phone away from his ear before Grantham deafened him. Gradually he moved the mobile closer to his ear as the tirade subsided.

‘Wait a minute, sir. Are you saying that DCI Tyler would like to meet for a coffee?’ Evans scratched his chin. ‘I take it he isn’t going to nominate me for a knighthood.’

The cell door creaked as it opened. When Jonny saw his mother his heart fell. She was distraught. He’d been so wrapped up in his own worries he’d never once considered the effect this would have on her. Her face was stained mascara smudged by tears.

‘I didn’t do it, Mam. I didn’t.’

‘Don’t worry, Jonny. I’ll call Dad and he’ll get one of his friends to help you. The Lord will not let you suffer injustice.’

Keeping his head down so that his mother couldn’t see the shame in his eyes, Jonny listened to her reassurances and put his palms together while she prayed for him. All too soon it was time for Jennifer to leave. The desk sergeant opened the cell door, a finger crooked in Jonny’s direction. ‘C’mon, you. They’re ready to interview you now.’

‘But what about his lawyer?’

‘There’s a duty solicitor who’ll sit in with him until his own lawyer arrives.’

Deciding that the best course of action was to go to the interview room and keep mute until one of his father’s lawyer friends arrived, Jonny followed the sergeant to an interview suite. Inside was a cheap Formica table and four plastic chairs. A series of switches decorated the wall beside the table.

A rumpled man in his fifties rose from one of the chairs, extending a hand. ‘Henry Oakes, the duty solicitor.’

Jonny took the proffered hand and shook it. Nothing about Oakes inspired confidence in him. His hair was overdue a cut, an egg stain decorated his creased tie and he’d knocked his briefcase off the table when he’d stood up to greet Jonny.

The door opened as he sat watching Oakes retrieve the contents of his briefcase. The arresting copper walked into the room followed by a stunning blonde. She wore a pencil skirt with a slit running up her right thigh. As she strode across to the chair, the slit opened to give a glimpse of stocking top. The crisp white blouse she wore was unbuttoned just enough to show a generous amount of cleavage without being indecent.

Jonny looked at Oakes. The man was entranced. He nudged his arm.

Fat lot of use this clown’s gonna be. I’ll just keep saying no comment until I have a decent solicitor beside me.

The blonde unwrapped two cassettes and fed them into the tape recorders fixed to the wall, pressed record and then named everyone in the room and gave the date and time.

Jonny felt the full force of her gaze as she turned to face him. ‘So then, Mr Green, can you explain why your blood was found on a window at a murder scene?’

‘My client has nothing to say on the matter.’ Since the blonde had entered the room Oakes had been unable to remove his eyes from her chest, he almost gave himself a squint trying to make eye contact with her.

‘Mr Green?’

‘No comment.’

The blonde tried asking the same question in different ways, but Jonny stuck to his guns and kept repeating his two-word answer.

‘Perhaps we can start from the beginning. Can you account for your whereabouts the night before last?’ Her eyes were soft and the way she looked at him made Jonny confident enough to answer this harmless question.

‘I went out with me mate.’

‘That’s fair enough. What’s his name so we can verify your story?’

‘Steve Collinge. He lives with me.’

‘We’ve already spoken to him.’ The blonde established direct eye contact with Jonny as she asked her next question. ‘Do you live together as a couple then or just as flatmates?’

‘I can hardly see the relevance of the question. Mr Green’s sexuality has no bearing on the case whatsoever.’

‘I apologise. You’re right. It has no connection whatsoever. I’m just a girl who likes to keep her options open.’

Jonny noticed the obviously insincere statement from the blonde had a profound effect on Oakes. He could see the lust in the duty solicitor’s eyes. He himself regarded her with a mixture of hope and fear.

‘So then, Mr Green, or may I call you Jonny?’ At his nod of assent, she resumed her questions. ‘Do you frequent the Drover’s Inn, Jonny?’

‘I’ve been once or twice in the past. A girl I was seeing from Penrith liked to go there for the odd drink and a bite to eat.’

‘So when was the last time you were there?’

Tiring of the charade, Jonny decided to go with the story he and Steve had agreed to stick to. The longer they held out the less chance they had of being believed. The blonde wasn’t a hardass. She was his best chance of having the lie believed. By the time his father rustled up a solicitor to represent him, he could be facing someone much less understanding.

‘We went a couple of nights ago. Steve fancied the barmaid, so we went down so he could try and chat her up.’

‘What time did you leave?’

‘About half ten. The manager threw us out because Steve kept bothering her.’

‘Her?’

‘The barmaid. The manager is an old guy. Used to be in the army I think.’ Aware he was starting to babble, Jonny fell silent.’

‘What was the barmaid’s name? If she can verify your version of events then it’ll help us to put you in the clear.’

‘Not so fast, DC Thompson. I think that the manager throwing them out gives us a motive for his murder.’

Damn. The blonde wasn’t letting anything go.

‘I didn’t murder no one.’

‘I didn’t murder no one.’ The blonde repeated the phrase and then leaned back as if about to pounce. ‘“I didn’t murder no one” is a statement containing two negatives. Therefore you must have murdered someone. Who was it, Jonny? Colin Armstrong? Were you pissed off ’cause he threw you out?’

‘Mr Green, I’d advise you to give the name of the barmaid so you can have your story verified.’

‘What was her name, Jonny?’

‘It was…’ Jonny couldn’t think of a name. The blonde was leaning further back in her chair while Thompson rested his folded arms on the table and hunched over them.

‘I’m sorry, Jonny, but I think you’re lying to me. There was no barmaid, was there?’

‘No comment.’

‘Why was your blood on the window, Jonny?’

‘No. Comment.’

Why wouldn’t she shut up using his name? They weren’t friends, so why did she keep calling him Jonny?

‘Why, Jonny? Why?’

Jonny had held out for this moment so his lies would carry more weight. ‘The manager called me some names as I went back to the car. I’d had a few pints so I threw a punch at a window. That must be how my blood got there.’

‘A punch you say Jonny? With a closed fist?’

‘That’s right.’ As soon as he answered her, she looked at his hands face down on the table.

The blonde smiled a cold grimace at him as she exchanged a look with the other copper. ‘For the benefit of the tape, Mr Green has no wounds on the back of either hand, yet the duty sergeant who admitted him recorded, a recent two inch cut on the palm of Mr Green’s right hand.’

The blonde used her fingertips to turn Jonny’s right hand over. Her mouth twisted into a knot far more damning than words.

There in the centre of his palm was an angry laceration.

‘That looks like a recent injury, Jonny. You’re not going to try and tell me you didn’t do it on the window we found your blood on, are you? Because a forensic examination of your hand would almost certainly prove the glass in the window made that cut.’

Jonny said nothing. There was too much evidence against him for the lie he and Steve had agreed on to work.

‘Why don’t you save the taxpayers a small fortune and tell us the truth? We’ll find out anyway.’

Thompson took over from the blonde. ‘I would say that a cut on the palm of a hand is more synonymous with someone climbing through an already broken window, rather than someone punching one.’

‘I agree. Admit it, Jonny. You were one of the people who were there when Mr Armstrong was killed.’

‘No, I wasn’t. I’ve told you the truth about it and that’s all I have to say.’

The blonde reached down and lifted up the briefcase she had carried into the room. Removing an envelope she put the briefcase back on the floor and stood up.

Jonny hated to think what was in the envelope. Whatever it was would have to be bad otherwise the blonde wouldn’t have kept it in reserve.

She stood up. Bending at the waist she leaned forward, giving him a close up of her cleavage. She had retained her position over the desk and seemed oblivious to the way Oakes’s eyes were locked on the contents of her bra. One by one she pulled pictures of blood droplets from the envelope.

‘These pictures were all taken at the Drover’s Inn. Forensic tests have proven each of these drops contain your DNA.’

Even as he fought to cope with the implications the pictures carried, Jonny found he could not tear his eyes from the view down the blonde’s blouse. The realisation her exhibitionism was a deliberate act to nullify the duty solicitor and distract him angered Jonny, but he had enough wits left to realise that if he got mad he’d end up doing something very stupid.

He and Steve had never considered the idea that he’d cut his hand on the way into the building. His blood in there was damning evidence. To think how clever he’d thought himself when they were burning their clothes to hide their tracks.

‘Go on, Jonny. Tell us what happened and we’ll try an’ help you. The early opinion from our head of Forensics is that you were there when Armstrong was murdered. He doesn’t believe you killed him though.’

Thompson’s jaw was set firm as he shook his head. ‘Don’t waste your time expecting a confession. Jonny boy hasn’t got the sense to tell us what really happened. He’ll deny everything, try and fob us off with a pack of lies. We’ve got plenty of evidence against him. Let’s just build our case and let him take his chances with a judge. If he’s lucky he’ll get less than ten years.’

‘So what’s it gonna be, Jonny? A confession and a reduced stretch, or a fight to the end and the longest sentence the judge can pass?’

Seeing nothing but a dead end, with a side road leading to a long time in prison broke Jonny. He accepted that the game was up and the police had too much on him. All his father’s solicitor friends would be able to do was get him a reduced sentence when he went to court.

‘OK. OK. Me and Steve did it. We went there on the rob. Old Man Armstrong went for us with a cricket bat. Steve whacked him with his crowbar and when he went down we took off. We never meant to kill him. Steve was just trying to stop him so we could get away.’

‘By Steve, do you mean Steve Collinge, your flatmate?’

Jonny nodded. ‘It was his idea to rob the place. We’d seen Border Crack and Deeks Aboot and heard about the pub robberies. Steve said it would be a piece of piss to turn one over and we’d get plenty drink and a good few quid.’

‘Mr Collinge has tried to lay all the blame on your door, but he didn’t know the forensic evidence didn’t support his claim that you were the one who killed Mr Armstrong.’

‘The bastard. It was him that hit Armstrong. Not me.’

Jonny watched as the blonde removed the tapes, dated them and pushed them across for him to sign.

Oakes rose to leave. ‘I wish you good luck at court, young man.’

‘Fuck off, you useless tosser. You’re a fucking disgrace. You spent more time looking at her tits than you did helping me.’ Spittle flew from Jonny’s mouth. ‘Believe me, I’m gonna make a complaint about you, you useless pervy arsehole.’

Oakes shrugged with seasoned indifference and left the room.

Jonny’s fingers shook the way his grandad’s did. His stomach had knotted itself into a ball causing his bowels to roil and twitch. The prospect of soiling himself was a realistic worry.

He knew his outburst at the duty solicitor had been unfair. While Oates had been guilty of the accusations levelled at him, the viciousness with which Jonny had spat the words shamed him. The man was doing a job and in his eyes, Jonny would just be the latest in an endless queue of losers to require his services.

The blonde and Thompson took him back to the custody area where, in the presence of the duty sergeant, the blonde charged him with breaking and entering and accessory to murder.