The Amen Cadence (9 page)

‘Oh, aye, we’ll be safe all right. Don’t you worry about that. But I need an assurance that you won’t tip Mary Clark off. Because I just might need a word with her at some point myself.’

‘Jesus, no. Don’t have a word with anyone else, OK? You stay here and do nothing. We’ll be back, and we’ll sort out a way forward that works for all of us. A way forward that gets us all what we want.’

‘A world without Dai Young in it?’

‘Something like that.’

‘No. It has to be something exactly like that, Pepper.’

Pepper left work in time to collect Ben from the after school club, and he looked surprised, but happy, to see her. So he pushed his luck, and asked for an iced lolly from the corner shop. They only had two Zooms left, and Pepper almost felt guilty about buying both as she blew into the wrapper on Ben’s, and then her own.

‘What colour are you on, mum?’ he kept asking, as they walked, and Pepper kept telling him.

‘They all taste the same to me though, love, like Jelly Babies.’

‘No way, mum. Jelly Babies all taste different.’

‘If you say so.’

The evening was soon passing much like any other, and Pepper was trying not to think about work. But she wasn’t surprised when she got a text from Copeland, about ten minutes after she’d sent Ben off to bed. She could hear his video game banging away upstairs, but he was entitled to his fifteen minutes of flames before sleep. Those were the rules, solemnly agreed. They both knew that he’d have another ten with the sound off afterwards, but neither of them talked about that.

She looked in the cupboards for nibbles to offer Rex when he arrived, and could only find a couple of packets of crisps, the flavours that Ben didn’t like. They’d have to do. She was almost sure that she had a couple of bottles of wine left from her last big shop, but when she checked they’d gone. Was it her, or one of the sitters? Both explanations were equally likely. Just for a second she thought about nipping to the off licence and leaving Ben for five minutes, but that wasn’t going to happen. Worst case, she’d just send Rex off with a tenner to buy a bottle. But then she checked her purse. Shit. All she had was shrapnel.

She needn’t have worried though, because Copeland came bearing food and wine. It was thoughtful, she thought, until she realised that they’d eaten kids’ snacks and drunk gin with no tonic the last time he’d been round, so maybe all he was displaying was a good copper’s memory. But she was grateful, and she said so.

‘I thought the wine might lubricate our brain cells’, he said. ‘Have you decided how to progress this? You’re not taking Hood’s word for it about the Super, I take it?’

‘No, of course not. And it’s not even his word, is it? Just what some un-named minion of Young’s said, while that huge mate of Davey’s had him in some kind of death-grip.’

‘Probably just sat on him.’

Pepper laughed. ‘Aye, he was a big lad, wasn’t he? And all muscle too. Come on, let’s get this wine poured.’

They sat in the sitting room. Copeland stayed quiet, and Pepper knew why. They were both asking themselves the same question, so she might as well give her answer.

‘Aye, I do believe that Mary’s at it, truth be told. As soon as Davey said it I realised.’

‘Why? Where’s the evidence?’

‘Nothing concrete, Rex. Just the way she’s been acting lately. Very up and down. And we all know that she’s just a civilian in uniform. It would be far too easy for the likes of Dai Young to put the bite on her, one way or another.’

‘Cash, do you think?’

‘No, not that. But you know what those bastards are like. They always find a way, don’t they?’

‘So you’re going to put it to her are you, straight out?’

‘Aye. In the morning.’

‘Alone, I take it.’

‘Aye, alone.’

‘And then what? What if she admits it to you, and what if she doesn’t?’

‘Exactly, Rex. I’m a bit stuck, either way. If she owns up, what’s next? And if she denies it, do I believe her anyway? But what if she doesn’t admit it, although she is actually dirty, then what’s her next move? Maybe we should concentrate on looking at that. It’s where all the risk is at, I’d say.’

‘Then she cuts and runs, surely?’

‘Yes, but where? Straight to Dai Young. And we both know what he does next, don’t we?’

‘Sends her on a nice little cruise?’

‘Yes, maybe, but it’d be the kind that finishes with a burial at sea.’

‘But you’ll warn her about that possibility, won’t you? If she denies it, I mean.’

‘Aye, I will. But I’m still worried about what might happen to her. I can’t afford to lose another friend, Rex, even if she is dirty.’

He nodded, and listened to the sound of gunfire from upstairs. He pointed towards the ceiling, and smiled.

‘Takes after his mum, does he?’

‘He’s got no-one else to take after, has he?’

Rex wished he’d never asked. ‘So what if the Super owns up, then? Do you turn her in? After all, your mate died because of her.’

‘No, Rex, that can’t be down to the mole, whoever it is. I didn’t know where Linda was, genuinely, so none of us did. No-one at work could possibly have known.’

‘Maybe she had another handler on the force. Someone you didn’t know about.’

‘No, that’s not possible. I know that lots of our snouts put it about a bit, and earn where they can from different officers, but Linda wasn’t like that. She mainly told me stuff to get back at that useless husband of hers.’

‘He’s already been eliminated from the murder enquiry, I take it?’

‘Oh, aye. Took about thirty seconds for those two blokes from West Midlands who came up to interview Tommy today to decide that he didn’t do it. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have killed her, because I expect he would have, eventually. But she’d have to have been right in front of him at the time, like. He doesn’t have the gumption to find his underpants in the morning, that bloke, let alone track down Linda and the kids.’

‘All right,’ said Copeland thoughtfully, ‘let’s accept that the Super didn’t give up Linda, and assume that she does confess to you. That’s our best case, yeah? What are the next steps then?’

‘I’m going to offer her a deal. Informal, just between us, like. She gives us Dai Young, directly or indirectly, and in return she gets to resign, and doesn’t face trial.’

‘Are you serious? No way, Pepper. Who knows what she’s given Young, this last few months. No, she’s got to go away. I’m sorry, but she has. I know she’s a mate and everything, but come on.’

‘It’d kill her, Rex. I’m not exaggerating. She wouldn’t last five minutes inside. A cop in prison who was never even really a cop. Can you imagine that? It would be a living hell. But that’s not why we need to offer her a deal. This is our best chance of catching Dai Young, of actually nicking the man himself. Because you know how this plays out otherwise, don’t you? Even if we do manage to tie Linda’s killing back to Young it’ll be one of his lads who does the time, not him. He’s got the money and the clout to stay clear of all this. So long as he wasn’t the one who did the beating, and we both know it wasn’t, then he’ll not do a single day inside for this.’

‘Unless…’

‘Unless we get Mary onside, and get her to help us set up Young.’

Copeland whistled, and shook his head.

‘Jesus, Pepper, that would be a huge gamble. What you’re talking about is a freelance operation, totally without any official sanction, going up against Dai Young’s whole set-up. We’d be bloody shredded.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Oh, no. You’re really thinking about involving soldier boy and his mates? Seriously? That’s just a shit idea, Pepper. Put the psychos up against the PTSD sufferers and retire to an unsafe distance? It would be a bloodbath.’

‘Not if we handled it right. Not necessarily. And I’ve had a bit of an idea, actually.’ Pepper reached forward to pour Copeland another glass, then stopped. ‘Just give me a minute, would you Rex. Ben’s just taking the piss now.’

Copeland sat and drank half his glass of wine while Pepper was upstairs. The smart move would be to tell her that he didn’t want any part of her plan, whatever it was. To wish her luck, and tell her that this conversation had simply never happened. The risks were just far too great, and what were the likely rewards? These weren’t his people, this wasn’t his home. And yet his career, and maybe his life, would be on the line if he stayed. So he should just go. Pepper would understand, he was sure of it.

But he was still sitting when she came back.

‘Sorry about that. You’ve just cost me a sleepover, with pizza and ice cream for tea.’

‘The boy drives a hard bargain.’

‘He does. So you do want to hear my idea? I half expected that you’d be gone, to tell the truth.’

‘Go on then, let’s hear it.’

‘We need to flush Dai out into the open, don’t we? Not his goons, not just hired muscle. We need him, nicked in the act. And that’s not going to be easy, because whatever we get Mary to say, Dai’s going to be on his guard.’

‘Agreed, so what’s your cunning plan?’

Pepper topped up Rex’s glass again, but not her own.

‘How’s this? Mary tells Dai that she’s sure I’m on to her, and that I need to be made to back off. She says that she wasn’t going to tell him, but that she knows that me and Davey Hood are an item, and that I’m round at his mum’s place most nights these days. She’ll say she just wants me warned off, and she’ll get him to promise that, but she doesn’t care about what happens to Hood.’

Copeland shook his head.

‘It’s a bit thin, isn’t it? I’m not sure he’d buy that.’ Rex grinned. ‘Unless it’s true, of course.’

‘No, of course it isn’t true. And yes, he would buy it, because he wants to. Dai reckons that everyone is against him, always has done, and me and Davey being a couple would just fit nicely with his world view.’

‘And what about yours?’

‘Eh?’

‘Your world view. Does you and Davey being a couple fit well with that?’

‘Don’t talk daft, Rex. Why is it that as soon as blokes come in here and sup a drop of wine their brains turn to mush? What we’re talking about is getting this sick bastard nicked any way we can, yeah?’

‘If you say so. But even if he did go for this cock-and-bull story he’d turn up mob-handed, wouldn’t he? And who would we have? You, me, Davey and his mate? I know they’re both fully-fledged ninjas, but even so, there are limits. Young and his boys are bound to be armed.’

‘Who says Davey isn’t? And I was thinking about asking Henry to pitch in with us. I’m pretty sure he would, and even if he didn't there’s no way he’d grass us up later. Absolutely no way.’

‘Henry? Look, he’s a lovely lad, and he’s as loyal as some sort of posh dog, like a labrador. Yeah, a labrador. One of those brown ones. But if it all kicks off, and it will, he’d be a liability. And Young’s put him on the deck once already, hasn’t he?’

‘That was my fault, Rex. Totally my fault. And don’t you underestimate Henry. All right, he’s no warrior, but there’s no one I’d trust more than him. Present company excepted’, she added, quickly.

‘All right, I’m in. And I assume you’ll be wired for sound, when you see Mary?’

‘I wasn’t going to be, but aye, that sounds like a plan.’

‘I’ll get you hooked up in the morning.’

‘Really? You know I can’t book the kit out officially, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, don’t you worry about that. I know one of the girls who works in tech support. I’m sure she’ll do me a little favour. If I ask really nicely.’

Pepper smiled. ‘I’d call you a bit of a dark horse, love, but you’d probably call me a racist.’

‘No, you’re not that. You’re a bloody equal opportunities guru these days, Pepper, because we’ve all got an equal opportunity of losing our bloody jobs if this goes tits up. And anyway, you should be calling me a player, because that’s what I am.’

This time Pepper laughed out loud.

‘In your dreams, Rex. My Ben’s more of a player than you are, and that’s a bloody fact.’

Friday, 19th June

CID office, Carlisle Police HQ, 8.06am

Acting DI Pepper Wilson didn’t draw any hasty conclusions from the note that someone had left on her desk asking her to call a DS who she’d never heard of down at West Midlands. The fact that whoever had taken the message had written ‘URGENT’ on it didn’t really mean much either. It probably just signified that this bloke at West Midlands was getting nowhere with his enquiries, and was desperately looking for some sort of break, no matter how small, to hang all the bloody overtime on.

But she still phoned while her computer was booting up, and DS Humphrys answered immediately.

‘It’s about those registrations you sent us. One of them has shown up on our ANPR system, and on the day of the murder too. Actually the times fit perfectly, and within two miles of where Linda was killed.’

‘Unbelievable’.

‘I know. It’s got to be a co-incidence, hasn’t it? Not even our local cons, who have to be the thickest on the planet, would be stupid enough to go on a premeditated murder driving their own bloody car. But I thought I’d better call you, anyway.’

‘Aye, of course.’ There was no excitement in Pepper’s voice, because she wasn’t feeling any. There had to be an explanation. ‘Which reg was it?’

He read the registration, and Pepper recognised it immediately.

‘A grey Kia, right?’

‘That’s the one. Please tell me it’s registered to one of your thickest local hard-men.’

‘Hardly. A bloke in a cardy and bifocals, who works as an accountant at the local hospital.’

‘They can be vicious, those accountants.’

Pepper laughed. She liked the sound of Humphrys, despite the accent, which made him sound as if he was joking all the time. But that was probably down to Jasper Carrot having been on the telly all the time, back when she was a kid.

‘Tell you what, mate,’ she said, ‘just leave it with me for a bit, would you? Don’t get your hopes up, but I might just have something for you.’

She dialled Martin Brothers immediately, and a breathless sounding receptionist answered on the the third ring. Pepper introduced herself.

‘Sorry to keep you, love’ said the receptionist. ‘It’s these heels. I can barely bloody move.’

‘Useless for running, aren’t they? I reckon that’s why there are so few transvestite muggers about.’

The receptionist didn’t laugh, so Pepper failed to resist the urge to stereotype, and then pressed on.

‘I’m not sure if you can help me, love, but I wondered if you could tell me, have you advertised any jobs recently? In the last few months, say.’

‘No, none.’

‘Are you sure, love? It’s important, is this.’

‘I’m certain, aye. I have to pull all the CVs together when they come in. Her highness in HR thinks it’s beneath her, like.’

‘And have you had any walk-ins? Anyone just coming in on spec with their CV?’

‘Aye, we did as it happens. About ten days ago, it was.’

‘Really? And was it a man or a woman?’

‘Woman.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘What, you think it might have been one of those transvestites? Is that who you’re after, like?’

Henry was already in, and he grabbed his jacket as soon as Pepper called his name. Something in her tone told him that they were on. She briefed him on Micky Thompson as they drove.

‘My guess is that he was the driver. Had to be. It’s the only explanation. There’s no way this lad beat Linda to death with a half-metre scaffold pole. No way.’

‘But why use his dad’s car? Young must have access to any number of nicked motors and ringers. Why not take one of those? It’s amateur hour, is this.’

‘Aye, and who knows why? Anyway, this kid is royally fucked now, isn’t he? Either he takes the rap for the lot and gets life, or he grasses up whoever did it, and then dies in prison in about six weeks time.’

‘Have you had the car picked up?’

‘Aye. A team from forensics are on their way with the low loader. I had a patrol car swing by ten minutes ago, and it’s parked in the drive.’

‘Jesus. The kid’s as green as grass. If the killer was in that car after the job it’s a racing certainty that there’ll be forensic traces, even if they put polythene on the seats.’

‘I know. Like I say, the kid’s fucked. His life’s over, one way or the other. But he deserves it, doesn’t he? Even if he never touched Linda himself that little bastard got her killed, and he’s going to pay for that. You mark my words.’

Henry didn’t reply for a moment, and when Pepper glanced across at him she could see that he was frowning slightly. She smiled. He was almost as easy to read as her Ben.

‘Don’t worry, Henry, I’m not going to beat him until his eyes pop out. Let’s just lift him, nice and quietly, and get him back to the nick, OK?’

‘He won’t be any bother? What if he is the killer? Shouldn’t we get the full contested arrest team out here? Just in case, like.’

‘No, Henry, we’ll be fine, just you and me. And I promise that what Dai Young did to you won’t ever happen again, not on my watch.’

‘I wasn’t thinking about that’, said Henry, a little too quickly. Pepper thought about talking about it some more, but like most coppers she knew that, contrary to what the trick-cyclists always said, there were times when you could talk too bloody much. So she kept her mouth shut, and they drove the rest of the way in silence.

And Pepper was right about the kid. He stayed quiet and compliant while he was being cautioned and cuffed, but his mum kicked off, crying one minute, then shouting about harassment.

‘You son is entitled to legal representation’ said Pepper, getting herself between mother and son. ‘Do you have a family solicitor, anything like that? We can phone them for you, or you could do it yourself. We’re going to Carlisle Divisional HQ. Just ask for DS Wilson.’

‘Phone Pope and Madigan, mum. They’ll send someone,’ said Micky loudly, as Henry was walking him down the path, between the regiments of white Petunias down the edge of the path.

‘I will. I’ll phone now. Don’t say anything to them, Micky.’

Pepper was used to wives and mothers saying this, usually word-for-word, but the context was almost always different. Because the Thompsons were an entirely respectable family, who - until now - had always been every bit as invisible to the police as the force was to them. So why was Mrs. Thompson coming over all gangster’s moll, all of a sudden?

‘Put him in the car, Henry. I’ll just be a minute.’

Pepper turned to Mrs. Thompson.

‘Can I come in for a minute?’

‘No. I need to make that call.’

‘Don’t worry. There’ll be no interview until your son’s solicitor arrives. I just wondered, has Micky been behaving oddly lately?’

‘No. He’s a good boy. He hasn’t been involved in any conspiracy to commit murder, or whatever it is you just said. That’s completely ridiculous.’

‘But he’s been withdrawn, hasn’t he? Uncommunicative. Arguing with you and your husband too, I expect?’

‘Not with me, not really. But Micky and Brian, well, they’ve not been getting on too well lately.’

‘It was about work, I expect?’

‘Aye, mainly. My Brian’s old fashioned, you see. Believes a man should work, be the provider, all that. But it’s not always that easy these days, is it?’

‘Maybe your son’s old fashioned too, Mrs. Thompson.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Maybe he’s become frustrated, because he hasn’t got a job. Perhaps he’s been feeling like a failure.’

‘Aye, maybe.’

Pepper sensed that Mrs. Thompson was softening very slightly now.

‘Has Micky been hanging around with any different people recently? Anything like that?’

‘I wouldn’t know, and that’s the truth. He’s been out ’til all hours, almost every night, I do know that. What will happen to him, love, if he is mixed up in something serious?’

‘That depends, Mrs. Thompson. Tell you what, you make that call, and then keep in touch with the solicitor. They’ll see you right.’

‘Can I come down to the station and wait?’

‘You’d end up sitting in reception for hours, I’m afraid. We do have a family room, but that’s only for the relatives of victims, I’m afraid.’

‘But my Micky’s a victim, I’m sure of it. He’s just been led astray, I expect. You know what young lads are like, always up to mischief, aren’t they?’

Pepper was going to reply, but she knew that she’d regret it if she said another word. So she turned away, and pictured Mrs. Thompson sitting in the cold, green visiting room at Haverigg or Strangeways, still looking at her son in just the same way that she had when he was six years old. She didn’t begrudge him it either, in a way. Because he’d need all the love he could get, would Micky Thompson.

Simon Pope was an infrequent visitor to Carlisle nick, but he came often enough for the Custody Sergeant to know the drill. He’d want at least half an hour alone with his client before the interview, and after that there was a very high probability that his client would ‘no comment’ his way through the first and any subsequent interviews. But then Pope specialised in working for cons with money, and people like that were always, but always, guilty of something.

Pepper Wilson was thinking much the same, as she and Henry Armstong drank their tea in the dirty little kitchen that served the interview room suite.

‘Interesting that he knew to ask for Pope. You know what that means, don’t you Henry?’

‘That the lad is working for Young.’

‘Aye, and…’

‘That he’ll be going ‘no comment’.’

‘A pound to a pinch of snuff, aye. Pope will have passed on a personal message from Dai Young already, I’ve no doubt about that.’

‘Say nowt or else?’

‘Exactly.’

Pepper heard Simon Pope calling her name from the corridor.

‘We’re ready to begin. I’m sure this won’t take long, will it? My client is young, and vulnerable, and I’ll expect you to take that into consideration.’

‘Vulnerable how, exactly?’ asked Pepper, emerging into the corridor holding The Simpsons mug that she’d chosen. It was that or a Cumbria Constabulary one.

‘He’s had no previous contact with the police.’

‘That doesn’t make him vulnerable. We call people like that honest citizens, not vulnerable individuals. Look, Mr. Pope, it’s a good try, is that, but he’s over eighteen, and so long as he has no medical conditions that you’d like to make us aware of we’ll be treating him just as we would any other suspect, OK?’

Pope turned away, walked to interview room 3, and opened the door. It was Pepper’s favourite, her lucky box, because she’d had two of her best ever confessions in there. But somehow she doubted that the room would give her the hat trick; not today, anyway. Pepper would lead on this one, even though Henry had recently been on the lead interviewer course at HQ, because she owed it to Linda to do her very best.

So she asked the easy ones first, the innocuous stuff, and sure enough Micky no commented his way through them all, in a small, flat voice.

‘Let’s talk about your dad’s car again, Micky. Last Tuesday, did you drive the car?’

‘No comment.’

‘Did you drive the car to Birmingham?’

‘No comment.’

‘It doesn’t matter, because I can prove that you did. Here, look at these. I’m showing the suspect images 1 to 28 in evidence file 1/276. Now, here’s the car, look. We’ve got it from the time you left Kendal, all the way to a camera less than a mile away from where Linda Taylor was murdered. And we’re sure that it was you who was driving, because we already know both of your parents’ whereabouts on that day. So we can prove it was you who drove that car.’

‘No comment.’

‘It’s all right, son, I hadn’t asked a question. At this very moment your dad’s car is being examined by our forensic’s team, and they really are very, very good. They’re bound to find forensic traces of your murder run. Absolutely sure to, they are. The only half-way safe thing to have done with that car would have been to torch it, somewhere nice and remote. Mind you, and don’t worry, because this is a rhetorical question coming up, so you won’t need to answer. But really, Micky, what on earth were you thinking, driving a car that could be connected straight back to you? Stolen wheels, cloned plates, then burn it out after. It’s the only way to get the job done right, is that.’

‘No comment.’

‘That’s what Mr. Pope has told you to say, isn’t it? And don’t worry, we’ll take the ‘no comment’ on that one as read, shall we? Otherwise we’ll all disappear into the bloody hall of mirrors in a minute, with your ‘no comments’ bouncing around the spot for ever and a day. But you’ve been let down here, Micky, badly let down. It’s almost as if you’re disposable to your bosses, just cannon fodder, like. Because we all know what’s happened, I’m afraid. You didn’t bash Linda Thompson’s head in with a piece of pipe, it’s obvious, is that. No, you were just the driver. So why didn’t they give you a ringer to use? A nicked car, on cloned plates? Easy-peasy. Christ, Dai Young has no end of car thieves in his little gang. That and a gallon of four star in the boot and you’d have been fine. So why didn’t he make sure that you were properly protected, eh?’

‘No comment.’

‘All right, not to worry. We’re almost done here. You’ll be bailed, but in a few hours, maybe a day or two, you will be charged. Please be in no doubt about that. And if you don’t give up the bloke who committed the murder, and we don’t catch him, then you’ll be all alone in the dock, and that’s the loneliest place in the whole wide world, believe you me. I expect Mr. Pope has told you that this will all go away if you just hang tough, but it won’t, Micky. Because we both know you were there, and we will be able to prove it, soon enough. Your mates have just thrown you under the bus here, son. That’s all there is to it.’

Pepper sat back, and for a moment didn’t even register the words that Micky Thompson spoke. She was expecting a final ‘no comment’, to round out the set of a hundred and fifty or so.

‘What did you just say?’