‘Chief, you’re welcome to sit in, but I’m not sure it’s correct that you do these interviews.’
‘Because this is your patch not mine?’ Kieron Bright was angry.
‘Not exactly, but our guys …’
‘Serrailler is my officer and I’m responsible for him. Technically, you’re right, and someone else can interview the housekeeper – my guess is that she’s peripheral. But I have to take the men apart to find out where my officer is and you would do the same.’
Privately, Kieron doubted it. The Superintendent was a robotic box-ticker, not a man who thought much for himself or would ever stray from the rules.
‘All right,’ he said now, ‘but I’m putting it on record that I’m not happy.’
After that, they walked down the corridor to the interview rooms in silence.
Frankie Webster came in with his head up. He sat back in the chair opposite Bright, folded his arms and met his eye.
‘What did you do with him?’
‘With who?’
‘You know who.’
‘I’m not a mind-reader.’
‘Don’t mess me about, I don’t have the time or the patience. Where did you take him?’
‘Listen, Webster, you’re deep in already, you’ll get more for keeping your mouth shut. Where did you take him?’
Silence.
‘How long have you worked for Morson?’
‘Twelve years.’
‘And your wife?’
‘She’s not my wife but, yeah, the same.’
‘Gets a lot of visitors, doesn’t he?’
The man shrugged.
‘Unexpected ones. Like Will Fernley and Johnno Miles.’
‘Nothing wrong with that.’
‘Did you talk to Johnno Miles?’
‘Only in the way of my work.’
‘Do you go into Morson’s basement?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever been into it?’
‘No.’
‘What, not even “in the way of your work”?’
‘No.’
‘Where is Johnno Miles?’
Silence.
‘Did he go into the basement?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know?’
Silence.
‘Does Morson lend you the stuff?’
‘What stuff?’
‘DVDs … films …’
‘No.’
‘What’s your username?’
‘What?’
‘To get into the website. Username.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. What are you charging me with? You can’t hold me –’
‘Oh shut up, Webster. Listen. You are going to tell me where he is. In the house? In the grounds? No. He’s somewhere you know about though. Why won’t you tell me? We’ll find him, we’ve got clothing from the room he slept in, the dogs will find him.’
‘Don’t need me to help you then.’
‘Where is he?’
Silence.
‘You’ll go down for as long as your boss, you know that?’
Frankie snorted.
It went on for another ten minutes. Frankie had not given an inch.
Morson’s face was grey and he looked sick. Bright looked at him in silence for a long time, until the QC shuffled, met his eye, dropped his gaze again, leaned back, leaned forward.
‘You are scum, Morson, but before we go there and I ask you how many deaths you are responsible for, you tell me where Johnno Miles is.’
‘I don’t –’
‘Yes, you do.’ Kieron put his arms on the table and stared. ‘You dare to sit there, you dare to walk the face of this earth, with the letters QC after your disgusting little name?’
‘What did you mean just then? You can’t just say things like that. I am not responsible for anyone’s death – you’ll retract that accusation.’
‘You’ll tell me where he is.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Who has him?’
Morson rubbed a pale, fat finger to and fro across the tabletop, his mouth twisting.
‘You are going to prison for life, Morson. You can’t save yourself and you know it. Your career is in ruins, your name will be muck, you will be reviled and abused – well, you should know all about that – and you’ll be begging for solitary and an armed guard to keep them away from you. You’ve seen the last of your grand house and your rich life and your basement room full of vile, nasty secrets. And a hell of a lot of people are going to have their collars felt during the next couple of days, and when they open their newspapers, they’ll know who to blame. So just find it in your stinking, filthy, miserable little soul to tell me where he is, and who’s got him and what you told them to do. All I need is a mobile number, Morson. Just one number and you can go back into the cells to rot. Come on …’
‘One mobile number isn’t going to tell you anything.’
‘One mobile number.’
Morson’s face was contorted into a sneer. Bright clenched his fists under the table.
‘Give it to me. Come on, come on.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Right – there is a number.’
‘If there was I wouldn’t remember it.’
Kieron sighed. ‘As well as the deaths of children on your conscience, children murdered so that you could watch abuse and snuff movies, you want the death of a cop spreading the stain as well? How many times a life sentence is that?’
Quite suddenly, the man crumpled. Something Bright had said had gone home. Something had penetrated to the place where he acknowledged it all, admitted it to himself – something he had probably never done. The Chief could see it on his face, in his eyes, hear it in his voice when he muttered the digits of the mobile number.
He wrote it on the back of his hand as he ran out of the room.
It took even less time than he had hoped.
‘They’ve got it, Chief. The mobile has been traced to Grays, Essex. Owner is Jason Anthony Smith, 147 Rondella Road, and the signal is within a couple of streets of that address.’
‘Anything on our Mr Smith?’
‘Oh yes. History of GBH, robbery with, armed robbery … dangerous man, but he was found not guilty last time, and if he’s done anything since, he’s been clever.’
‘Can you find out the name of the counsel who got him off?’
They came back within a few seconds.
‘Andrew Morson, QC.’