Dan was back at the local Magistrates Court, fresh from his visit to Shelley. Why had she kept Mickey secret? She’d been told to lose him, she said, but why? Had she expected him to find Mickey anyway? Is that why she’d transferred the case without Conrad’s knowledge, knowing that Dan would discover the same thing that she had.
He’d phoned his client to tell him that he was going to be late and it turned out that he wasn’t going to attend anyway. The slur to his voice told Dan that the next appointment ought to be in the morning. Missed appointments were part of the job.
He was at the court to meet Murdoch. He was loitering by the door, leaning against the stone pillar and looking out over the open square in front of the library opposite.
He smelled Murdoch before he saw her, the scent of stale tobacco drifting towards him. The police station was connected to the court, so that the overnight prisoners could be brought blinking into the brightness of the courtroom from the dark tiled corridor underneath.
‘Henry Oates,’ Dan said, as he turned. ‘Do you want me to repeat the question, or have you managed to locate the information?’
‘Don’t be an arsehole. Follow me.’
They walked back into the courthouse, along a dim corridor that ran by one of the small courts at the rear of the building, reserved mainly for traffic cases and those trials where the defendant wasn’t expected to go to prison. She stabbed a few numbers into the keypad and went into the police station, holding the door for Dan.
This was an area of the station Dan rarely saw. His visits were confined mainly to the cell complex, where everything was sterile; plain cream walls, broken only by posters advising prisoners of their rights and that lawyers had to surrender their phones. This part of the station was bustling, with pieces of paper fluttering on walls, showing maps of the town or pictures of crime nominals, those people who accounted for most of the low-level crime. The police wanted them put away so that they could smarten up their crime figures. Dan recognised some of the faces and wanted them at large, to keep his own work ticking over. It was a dirty job sometimes.
Murdoch turned into a room behind a frosted glass door. In there was a male officer sitting at a desk, the chair leaning back, his lips pursed. Dan recognised him. Andrew Edwards. He’d fallen out with him a few times when dealing with prisoners. Edwards was the confrontational type, one of those who’d advance too closely if he didn’t like the advice a client was getting, thinking that he’d get his way if he breathed stale coffee over him. What he’d never worked out was that tactics like that, bullying, aggressive, made Dan even more determined to fight against it.
Murdoch gestured for Dan to sit down. He shook his head. He was fine to stand. He folded his arms.
‘Tell him,’ she said.
Edwards sat forward, his chair clumping to the floor. ‘I spoke to Henry Oates.’ His mouth was set in a scowl, his eyes narrowed. ‘He had nothing to say, the ramblings of a drunk, so I didn’t note it down. That’s all there is. No secrets, no conspiracy.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Like I said, nothing. He reckoned he’d seen Carter on the night, with Mary, but he couldn’t even get the night right. Said it was the Friday, and he remembered it because he’d been into town and there was some kind of event on, the local radio station holding a roadshow, but that was the day before, the Thursday.’
‘But there should still have been a note of it,’ Dan said. ‘He’s a witness who’s given you information.’
‘If it’s the wrong night, he’s no witness at all. How do you know about him? Did he come stumbling into your office?’
‘When you ignored him, he spoke to Shelley, because however much of a hopeless drunk he is, he’d seen a murder victim just before she was killed, along with the accused. He thought it was important.’
‘What did Shelley do about it?’
‘Not much. But I’m not Shelley. What did he say about how Carter and Mary were?’
‘Just walking together.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
His eyes narrowed even further. ‘Yes, I’m sure. What are you getting at?’
‘Henry remembers them more vividly. And I’ll tell you something else too, that it causes problems for your case whichever night it was.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Henry said Carter and Mary were more than just friends. They were kissing, being romantic as they made their way to her house.’
Edwards paused before he said, ‘So what?’
‘Think about it,’ Dan said, his tone implying that he knew DC Edwards didn’t spend much time thinking at all. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it was the night of the murder or not, it shows that Carter wasn’t the oddball pestering her.’
Edwards folded his arms. ‘But if it isn’t the night of the murder?’
‘Then it’s even worse for your case, because then Carter and Mary are a regular thing.’
‘Or perhaps he was just showing off, making out that Mary was his girlfriend, and she was too polite to tell him to get lost?’
‘Maybe, but you can see how it’s relevant.’
Edwards shrugged.
‘Anything else?’ Murdoch said to Dan.
‘No. We can deal with the rest of it in court.’
‘What do you mean?’ Edwards said, his eyes darkening.
‘Work it out,’ Dan said, as he walked out of the room, heading back to the corridor.
Murdoch caught up with him, out of breath from the short dash. ‘Happy now?’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean? Yes, he’s been sloppy, dismissing Oates like that, but it doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Is he a good copper?’
Murdoch thought about that. ‘A bit old school, if you know what I mean.’
Dan did. Brusque, no nonsense, the focus on the case, getting ‘justice’, not on promotion.
‘That makes it worse. I can’t work out why he didn’t make a note of it, because it doesn’t matter how much Henry is an old soak, he said something worth hearing that might have led to more enquiries. If he saw them acting like lovers on the way home, you might have checked for more CCTV near there or done some more knocking on doors. No, it sounds more like Edwards wanted to ignore it, and that makes me uncomfortable.’
‘Shelley ignored him too, by the sounds of it.’ They’d reached the door into the court. ‘How is she?’
‘I’ve just been to see her. She’s fine. She’ll come back fighting,’
‘Good.’ She held open the door. ‘You’re reading too much into this thing with Henry.’
‘We’ll find out soon enough.’ He knew that Murdoch was watching him as he set off, the door not closed.
Andrew Edwards. Something wasn’t right, and Dan needed to know more.