CHAPTER NINETEEN

Peter Collins replayed the formal police interviews with Alan in his mind while he drove out of town. He was almost certain that whatever was bugging and eluding him hadn’t been said in the station. Not in the interviews he had sat in on, or the ones Trevor had conducted while he’d watched and listened outside the room. Yet the more he tried to concentrate on exactly what it was Alan had said that had triggered his suspicions, the more confused he became.

Was it something Alan had said to him in an informal conversation? Possibly when they had both been standing on Alan’s patio the night Alan had discovered Kacy Howells’ body? That didn’t seem right. He had memories of a convivial atmosphere, both of them laughing – the pub lunch they’d shared. Had it been on the afternoon of the day Kacy Howells had been found murdered? It seemed further back in time. He’d been talking about Kacy Howells’ persecution of Alan.

‘You don’t expect a woman – and I use the word loosely – to stalk her neighbours by snaking around the border of her garden using her elbows and knees like a commando so she can eavesdrop on a private conversation. I can still see the look on her face when she looked up and saw us staring down at her. I expected her to at least say “sorry” before running off into the house. But she didn’t say a word, not a single bloody word.’

‘That’s not the first time it’s happened. One of my …’

Alan hadn’t finished his sentence because he’d noticed him staring.

‘Sources?’ He’d guessed what Alan was about to say but he’d also anticipated Alan’s response.

‘Don’t ask.’

Alan had never divulged who had tipped him off about the White Baron. Every officer who’d worked on the case had assumed it had been one of the Red Dragon’s henchmen. Like Lofty? Had it been Lofty? Dan had been working on the Drugs War case for over a year and the evidence he’d accumulated pointed to Lofty killing at least one of the Red Dragon’s rivals on his boss’s orders. Evidence based on “hearsay” that would never stand up in court.

As both the White Baron and Red Dragon operated in the same field, the Red Dragon would undoubtedly have had the knowledge and information to shop the White Baron. Had the Red Dragon passed it on to Lofty and asked him to give it to Alan Piper so it could be published? The police didn’t have a monopoly on narks’ information and he didn’t doubt that journalists would pay more for a scoop than the local force would for a tip-off. He also wouldn’t put it past narks to try journalists first, especially with sensitive information that came without hard evidence attached to it. On Alan’s own admission he’d had to dig deep for the final pieces of evidence that had put the White Baron away. It made sense. One drug lord fitting up another to do gaol time. Leaving the market open for a monopoly. And Dan was convinced that since the White Baron had gone down the Red Dragon was the only major drug dealer in town.

Still preoccupied, Peter parked his car in the prison car park and walked across to the reception area. The towers of the sterile cell blocks rose above and behind the single-storey entrance building. The facility was new, purpose-built and several miles and light years away from the Victorian institution it had been built to replace. But the old and grossly inadequate Victorian prison remained in use. The demand for prison places had risen so steeply that the authorities needed both. Since the new prison had opened, both old and new facilities had been filled to capacity but, whenever possible, the new prison was used for those on remand, if for no other reason than that the cells were cleaner and the leisure activities on offer more numerous. A testament to the British belief of “innocent until found guilty”.

Peter signed in, submitted to the routine search, left his mobile phone, pens, wallet and personal items in a locker in the reception area, pocketed the key and steeled himself for the endless routine of unlocking and locking of doors by warders, and irritating waits in submarine-style “holding areas” between the locked doors that separated and secured the different areas of the prison.

Ten tedious minutes later, he sat facing Alan in a blandly decorated cubicle that stank of antiseptic. A warder stood, his back to the door watching both of them, as Peter took a seat across a table from Alan.

‘How are you?’

‘That’s a stupid bloody question, even coming from you,’ Alan growled.

Unfazed by Alan’s outburst, Peter continued blithely, ‘You look tired.’

‘You think I came in here for a rest?’

‘I assumed sleeping might be a way of passing the time.’

‘Even if I could sleep – which I’m having difficulty doing with a murder charge hanging over my head – it’s too bloody noisy and airless in here to rest. Lights-out is a signal for my fellow inmates to start banging out Morse code on their doors.’

‘Lack of sleep explains your foul mood.’

‘Did you come here for a reason? Or are you just visiting the monkeys in the zoo.’

Peter took the notebook and pencil he’d declared to the warder who’d searched him from his shirt pocket. ‘Something you said has been bugging me.’

‘I said a great many things. All truthful. I only wish your fellow piggies, starting with Trevor Joseph believed me. If they had, I wouldn’t be locked up in here and you’d have no reason to visit this salubrious place.’

‘A couple of days inside and you’re already calling law enforcement officers “piggies”?’

‘Make a civilized man live among savages and he becomes one.’

‘Is that a quote or an Alan Piper original?’

‘Say what you’ve come to say and clear off.’

‘Can’t wait to return to your nice cosy little cell?’

‘I needed that reminder.’

Peter gave a bright artificial smile. ‘Much as I enjoy chatting to you, I’m here under sufferance and they’ll kick me out soon enough. Where did you get the information you published on the White Baron?’

‘I don’t believe this. First Dan, now you asking me to name one of my sources. I thought you both knew better.’

‘Off the record,’ Peter emphasised.

‘I know you and your “off the record”.’

‘I’m your cousin. We’ve been closer than brothers since I was knee-high. In fact a lot closer than we are to our own brothers …’

‘You’re also a copper. And with you that will always come first. Whatever I tell you, will only stay off the record as long as you don’t need it in a courtroom.’

Peter leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘You’re a thick-headed bastard. Can’t you see I’m trying to help you?’

‘Help yourself to a promotion like your mate Trevor more like.’

‘I thought you knew me.’

‘Look at where trusting your bloody friend Trevor Joseph’s put me …’

‘Look at where you put yourself, you idiot,’ Peter retorted. ‘It wasn’t Trevor who applied for a credit card in Kacy Howells’ name or bought an advert featuring her in a porn mag. What was Trevor supposed to do? Ignore fraud because he happens to know you’re my cousin and a nice guy?’

‘Don’t change the subject. And don’t ever ask me to name my sources.’

‘If that’s your last word, you can rot in here until you go to trial.’ Peter rose to his feet. ‘You might not be treated so kindly afterwards. Lifers can end up in all sorts of funny places. This is one of the jewels in the chain of Her Majesty’s pleasure palaces. There are still a few dungeons staffed by Neanderthals in existence, where they put people who refuse to co-operate.’

Alan raised his eyes and looked at Peter. ‘You know what my career would be worth if I told you my sources.’

‘I said “off the record”,’ Peter reiterated.

‘I don’t trust you.’

‘Don’t expect me to visit you when you’re transferred to a cellar full of loonies and I’m not talking about the inmates.’

Alan glanced at the warder who was still standing in front of the door. The man was staring impassively at the blank wall above their heads but Peter and Alan knew he was listening to every word they were saying.

‘No names,’ Alan mouthed.

Peter hesitated

‘No names,’ Alan mouthed again, ‘but I’ll give you background,’ he whispered.

Peter returned to his seat. ‘Did the Red Dragon shop the White Baron to you, or was it one of his henchmen?’

‘Do you think I wouldn’t have tipped you off if I knew the identity of the Red Dragon?’ Alan whispered.

‘Mr “My sources are sacrosanct” wouldn’t have.’

‘You said it yourself. Half the drugs disappeared from the street when you put away the White Baron. But I wouldn’t mind betting that in spite of the drug war and rising body count over market share, the other half has multiplied and you lot are fighting the same number of dealers and addicts that you were before the Baron went down.’

‘We might make some inroads if we could take out the Red Dragon as well,’ Peter acknowledged.

‘If I knew who he was I’d tell you.’

‘Then one of the Dragon’s henchmen shopped the Baron?’

‘You never give up, do you?’ Alan clenched his fists.

‘Evidence you gathered and wrote about in the paper – before you came to us,’ Peter reminded him coldly, ‘put away one major dealer and a few minor ones. But whoever the Red Dragon is, he’s powerful, invisible and he has people running scared. Snaggy …’

‘You know Snaggy?’

‘I knew Snaggy.’

‘Knew … he’s dead?’

‘He and Lofty were found early this morning, fastened to a mooring ring in the Marina. Rumour has it by the Red Dragon’s henchman who beat them up before they drowned them in a freshwater pool and dropped them into the sea.’

‘Horrible way to go,’ Alan murmured. ‘Snaggy was a mercenary sod, but occasionally his information was spot-on.’

‘He told me that Lofty killed Kacy Howells on the orders of the Red Dragon.’

‘Did he now?’ Unlike Dan and Trevor, Alan didn’t pour scorn on the idea.

‘You believe him?’

‘It’s possible.’ Alan remained guarded.

‘Because Kacy Howells saw you talking to one of the Red Dragon’s narks in your garden.’

‘Never stop being a copper for one minute, do you?’

‘I’m right.’

‘Yes.’

‘And, with some narks that would have been enough to sign her death warrant.’

‘If the nark thought she’d overheard our conversation and understood it – yes.’

‘Did she?’

‘If she did, I never heard a hint that she’d made anything of it. So on that basis, I doubt it. I think she was simply crawling around on her hands and knees to bug me. Which as you well know she succeeded in doing.’

‘Come on, Alan, give me a name,’ Peter demanded.

Alan closed his eyes momentarily.

‘This is your freedom you’re playing with.’

‘The name won’t do you any good.’

‘I’ll be discreet. I’ll find somewhere to talk to him where we won’t be seen.’

‘It won’t do you any good,’ Alan repeated.

‘Who …’

Alan opened his eyes. ‘Lofty.’

‘He approached you?’

‘Yes.’

‘At the Red Dragon’s instigation?’

‘That’s what he told me. I had no reason not to believe him.’

‘Why would the Red Dragon tip you off about the White Baron?’

‘You said it yourself. The drugs war was starting. The town isn’t big enough to support two major dealers.’

‘Who got in touch with who?’

‘Lofty with me.’

‘How?’

‘I came home one night at midnight and found him sitting on the patio outside my back door.’

‘He drove up the street?’

‘No, he walked down the path that leads from the farm. I know because he went back that way. We saw Kacy Howells crawling along the ground when I walked him up to the woodland patio.’

‘How many times did you see him?’

‘Just the once.’

‘What did you pay him?’

‘Nothing.’

‘He gave you information free and for gratis?’ Peter was incredulous.

‘He did.’

‘Did you ask him why?’

‘He said his girlfriend had been killed by heroin supplied by the White Baron. You remember that batch that had been mixed with asbestos and cement powder and contaminated with cyanide?’

Peter thought for a moment. ‘Two years ago, forty people died. Did you check out the name he gave you?’

‘He wouldn’t give me one.’

‘So there was no way to prove that he wasn’t lying.’

‘Not now.’ Alan watched Peter leave his seat. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Some more thinking.’

‘You believe me?’

‘Now I do. But it remains to see whether or not it will help to get you out of this place.’

‘Do you have any biros you can spare?’

Peter saw the warder watching them. ‘So you can make it into a bong? No way, mate.’

‘And you believed Alan when he told you that Kacy Howells eavesdropped when he and Lofty were talking about the White Baron?’ Dan Evans was pedantic in speech and thought. His mannerisms frequently irritated Peter to the point of eruption but Trevor had realised long ago that Dan’s insistence on getting every fact straight – no matter how small – had saved, not wasted time on every case they had worked on together.

‘Yes,’ Peter stated emphatically. ‘I saw her crawling along the boundary fence myself when I was talking to Alan. Think about it, Dan. It makes sense. Especially of Snaggy’s assertion that it was Lofty who killed Kacy Howells. Alan said he found Lofty sitting on his patio one night, waiting for him to come home. He’d walked down the path that led from the farm down through the woods to the back of Alan’s and the Howells’ garden. The same path Trevor thinks Kacy Howells’ killer might have used.’

‘Slow down,’ Trevor broke in abruptly. ‘I had enough suspects before you brought Lofty into the Howells case.’

‘None have a better motive than Lofty.’

‘I don’t know about better. Her father, husband and ex-lover all had reasons to kill Kacy Howells – as did Alan.’

‘Alan, come on …’

‘You don’t see Alan losing his temper with Kacy Howells after she’d stalked him and generally made his and his wife’s life hell while his wife was dying?’ Dan questioned.

‘Losing his temper, yes,’ Peter conceded. ‘But there’s a world of difference between losing your temper with a neighbour and axing them to death.’

‘Even if the axe is lying to hand?’ Trevor raised his eyebrows.

‘Stop playing Devil’s Advocates and open your minds.’ Peter left his chair, paced to the window, turned and faced Trevor and Dan. ‘Imagine you’re the Red Dragon. You’re making money supplying drug dealers, not as much as you’d like because the price on the street is falling – just as it was before Alan wrote his article. A rival supplier is undercutting your merchandise. What you’d really like is a monopoly on supply, then you can fix the price at a level of your own choosing. So you look to one of your men and instruct him to shop the White Baron to a journalist. You give that journalist enough information to put the White Baron in the dock plus a number of leads that helps to pile up the evidence against him. But when your man goes to see the journalist – unannounced and late at night – he discovers a neighbour eavesdropping. Has she heard and seen enough to finger him …’

‘Him being the henchman?’ Dan checked.

‘Alan insists he doesn’t know the identity of the Red Dragon.’

‘And you believe him?’ Trevor asked.

‘Yes, I believe him.’ Peter answered irritably.

‘Does that mean that you think Lofty killed Kacy on his own volition, and not on the orders of the Red Dragon?’ Dan asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Peter shrugged. ‘But if he did kill Kacy Howells, which I think he did, he didn’t keep his mouth shut about it because Snaggy got wind of it.’

‘There’s not one shred of physical evidence to connect Lofty to the murder scene,’ Trevor pointed out.

‘There might be. Alan said that he found Lofty sitting on his patio at midnight. He knew the path and found his way to the back of Alan’s house in the dark. That establishes that Lofty knew his way to the Howells’ garden. He could have killed her and changed and disposed of his bloodstained clothes on the way back to his car.’

‘Which he’d parked in the lane that leads to the farm,’ Trevor murmured.

‘Think about it,’ Peter pressed eagerly. ‘Lofty was in Alan’s garden. He went there without anyone – even that village gossip who sits in her front window all day – seeing him. He could have taken the tissue and a piece of Alan’s discarded chewing gum from Alan’s bin bags and planted them on the Howells’ deck alongside Kacy Howells’ body. And he could have planted that axe in front of Alan’s car …’

‘When it was in the street in full view of the gossip?’ Dan observed.

‘He could have put the axe there early in the morning before the gossip was up, or late at night under cover of darkness.’

‘There’s still no forensic evidence,’ Trevor reminded.

‘Every idiot who watches crime shows on TV these days knows how to fudge forensic evidence,’ Peter said dismissively. ‘Besides there were smudges on the decking that could have been down to gloves and paper over-shoes.’

‘Why would Lofty frame Alan?’ Trevor questioned.

‘Because Lofty or the Red Dragon was afraid that Alan was talking to us about Lofty’s tip-off. I’ve been around there a fair bit since Joy died. Perhaps one of them thought that I was collaborating with Alan and he didn’t stop at passing on the information Lofty gave him, but had started digging for more and got closer than he realised.’

‘You think Lofty was watching Alan – and you?’ Dan asked.

‘I don’t know. He could have been.’

‘There’s a lot of supposition in your arguments,’ Dan said shortly.

‘Supposition that’s worth investigating,’ Peter challenged.

There was a knock at the door. Dan shouted, ‘Come in,’ and Sarah Merchant opened it.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but I have some information Inspector Joseph asked for.’ She gave Trevor a computer print-out.

Trevor read it and looked up at her. ‘You’re sure about this, Constable?’

‘As sure as I can be, sir. Whoever is paying the Walshes to store cleaning materials in their garage, isn’t operating a contract cleaning business within a two hundred mile radius of this town.’

‘Thank you, Sarah.’

‘Sir.’ Sarah hesitated for a moment before leaving.

‘That girl is curious and curiosity makes for a good copper,’ Dan held out his hand and Trevor passed him the print-out.

‘The path at the back of the Howells’ house is all yours, Peter.’ Dan rose to his feet. ‘Take a good look at it in the morning.’

‘I will.’ Peter smiled.

Dan looked at Trevor. ‘That search warrant you wanted?’

‘Yes.’

‘Use it with care and make sure you get the goods when you do.’