Malcolm Fisk did, in fact, have a criminal record. Mostly from his early twenties, it had to be said. It had involved burglary, assault and, possibly more interestingly, some minor drug offences. He was obviously back from his latest driving job, if the vicar had seen him. Cross called in on him at his cottage. Fisk wouldn’t let him in and so they were sitting on a bench by the river inlet in the village.
‘Interesting name, Fisk. Particularly appropriate when you consider where you live,’ Cross began their conversation with him. Fisk worked for a national haulage company, recently rebranded as a logistics firm. It was based in the south-west. It did a lot of business out of Avonmouth Docks. Moreton had unsuccessfully applied for injunctions against Fisk.
‘Is it?’ Fisk replied with distinct disinterest.
‘Is your family from around here originally?’ Cross went on, not in the least discouraged.
‘Yeah. I live in my gran’s house. Well, it’s mine now.’
‘Fisk unsurprisingly derives from the word fish. First used in the UK in the Middle Ages, I believe. Were your family fishermen at some point?’
‘No idea, but we’ve always been working the water in one way or another. My grandparents were pilots here. My dad then worked in the docks at Avonmouth,’ said Fisk.
‘But you chose a different path,’ Cross commented.
‘I did a bit, yeah. Started driving at the docks before they had a load of redundancies. Look, what is this all about? I’m knackered. I need a kip.’
‘Where do you drink?’ Cross asked.
‘Drink?’
‘Well, you’ve been barred from the only pub in the village. Where do you go?’
‘Oh, I see. Well, maybe that’ll change now the old bastard’s dead,’ said Fisk.
‘Interesting way of describing a murder victim to a police officer investigating his death,’ Cross pointed out.
‘It wasn’t nothing to do with me,’ spat Fisk.
‘His murder?’ asked Cross.
‘Well, what else are we talking about?’
‘Where were you on the night of Mr Moreton’s murder? Sunday night?’
‘I was working.’
Cross nodded slowly at this information.
‘That’s good. If I were someone who was in a widely known antagonistic relationship with a person who later ended up murdered in the village where that antagonism was on view on a daily basis, I would make sure I knew where I was at the time he was murdered. You didn’t get on with him, did you?’
‘That’s an understatement. The man was a bloody pervert. Everyone knew it. I was the only one to call him out on it and it got me barred from the pub. If anyone should’ve been barred it should’ve been him. Bloody paedophile. I’ve got every right to protect my own.’
‘Except that by the time it happened your “own” were no longer any such thing. They’d been long gone. You were still trying to point the finger at him despite the fact that Kylie and her mother had moved away years ago. Moved to get away from you.’
‘Not true.’
‘Many people thought you’d killed her, didn’t they? Classic case of a stepfather abusing his stepdaughter then killing her. They’d seen men like you on the television pleading tearfully for the return of their beloved stepdaughter knowing full well she was dead in the loft where they’d wrapped her up in a carpet and bin bags a few days before,’ Cross pushed.
‘No one in this village thought that,’ Fisk protested.
‘Because you had them all looking in Moreton’s direction.’
‘Because I thought he’d done something to her. She was spending way too much time with him. It wasn’t right.’
‘But it wasn’t wrong either. He was teaching her to read. Helping her with her dyslexia.’
‘So he said.’
‘So she said,’ Cross pointed out.
‘That girl’s a liar.’
‘Is her mother a liar as well? Her mother who called the police on three separate occasions claiming you’d assaulted her?’
‘Nothing happened.’
‘No, she changed her story on all three occasions until Kylie went missing and then it all came out.’
‘All lies,’ said Fisk.
‘I’m surprised you still live here,’ commented Cross.
‘Why should I move? I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘Where were you on Sunday night?’ Cross asked.
‘Like I said. On a job. Europe.’
‘I’ll need proof.’
‘Then call the company.’
‘I already have.’
Fisk took this in and said nothing. Nothing was said as they just looked at each other.
‘I’m sure like many people you have little or no respect for the police. But surely you knew we’d check. Where were you?’
‘At home.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yep.’
‘Pity you’d got yourself barred from the Hobbler’s Arms. Could’ve been a useful alibi, plenty of witnesses. You used to go down there regularly before the bar. And all because of Alistair Moreton,’ Cross went on.
‘I didn’t kill him. End of.’
‘Would you allow us to take a saliva sample from you, Mr Fisk? To get a DNA sample?’
Fisk scoffed at the very idea.
‘You’ve got to be kidding. Why would I do that?’ he asked.
‘To enable us to eliminate you from our enquiries,’ Cross reasoned.
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Why not?’
‘I know what you lot are like. I probably look like I’m good for this with my history with Moreton. You’ll make your minds up I did it. People in the village will tell you I probably did. No witnesses though. No alibi, but no proof neither. But that won’t matter. You’ll push for a confession and when you don’t get it, hey presto, my DNA turns up magically at the crime scene,’ he said.
‘I can assure you—’ Cross began.
‘You’re police. Your assurances don’t mean a thing.’
He then got up and shuffled away.