‘Yes?’
‘But the coppers are still hassling me.’
‘You want me to do something about it?’
He frowned. ‘No, I just… that witness picked you out.’ ‘Don’t be ridiculous. She made a mistake, that’s all.’ I paused. ‘Maybe she was paid to make a mistake.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘How do you mean?’
But I just shrugged. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘are you going to stop following me, or must I call DI Preston?’
He screwed up his face. ‘Preston, that bastard. You’re all in it together, you lot. All matey, all favours and stuff.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
He just made another face and walked away. I watched him go. Then, trembling a little, I went into my office and opened a fresh bottle of brandy.
I knew I had to talk to the witness. The problem was: Would she talk to me?
It was difficult. I was finding it harder to get things straight in my mind. I knew I was in dangerous territory, and that things might get worse still. I spent all the rest of that day watching for Barry Cooke, but I never saw him. Maybe my warning was enough; maybe he was keeping his distance for reasons of his own. But someone did scratch my car. I phoned my wife and told her about it, explaining that after work I was going to get respray estimates from a couple of garages.
Then I headed out to Sophie Marshall’s estate.
I parked at a distance and had to walk down the very alley where she’d been attacked. It was a dreary spot, a narrow corridor bordered by high brick walls covered in graffiti. There was a railway line nearby, trains thundering past. A terrible place to die. I had to stop for a moment and control my breathing. But I went on.
It is difficult, more difficult than I’d imagined, to hang about on these estates while remaining inconspicuous. People came to their windows, and children stopped playing to stare at me. So I climbed the stairwell and walked about a bit outside the lines of flats, looking like I knew where I was going.
It was hopeless. After a nervous half-hour, I decided to return to my car. I was sitting in the driver’s seat, hands clutching the steering wheel, trying to calm myself down, when I saw her. She walked on loud high-heeled boots, spiky things, as spiky as she herself was. She wore tight black denims, ripped at the knees, and a baggy black T-shirt. She hadn’t brought Boyd with her, thank God. I didn’t want to have to deal with Boyd, not if I could help it. She had her head down, either sullenly or just to avoid eye contact with other pedestrians. Standard practice these days, sad to say.
She passed within feet of my car, but didn’t so much as glance at it. I gave her half a minute to walk down the alley, then got out of the car, locked it, and followed. I was giving her plenty of time. By the time I got to the far end of the alley, she had already crossed the quadrangle and was somewhere in the block. Then I saw her appear on the third floor. She walked to the fourth door from the stairs, and opened it with a key.
I followed.
I stood outside her door for the best part of a minute, then bent down to look through her letterbox. I could hear music, probably a radio. But no voices, no other sounds. I stood up again and looked at the nameplate on the door. It was a piece of cheap lined paper, stuck to the paintwork with tape. AFFLICK, it said. I knocked a four-beat rhythm, a friendly knock, then waited.
There was no spy hole, so when she came to the door she opened it. No security chain either. I pushed the door open wide and went in.
‘Hoi,’ she said, her voice a squeal, ‘what the hell-?’
Her voice died as she recognised me. Her cheeks went red.
‘I just want to talk, that’s all. Five minutes of your time.’
‘I’ll yell bloody murder,’ she said.
I smiled. ‘I don’t doubt it. Look, I wouldn’t have come here, but I need to speak to you.’
‘What about?’
‘I think you know. Can we sit down?’
She took me into the living-room, which was little more than a hovel. She went straight to the fireplace, switched off the radio, opened a packet of cigarettes, and lit one for herself. She never took her eyes off me. She looked scared. I cleared a space and sat down on the sofa. I crossed my legs, trying to look relaxed, hoping she wouldn’t see me as a threat. I didn’t want that.
‘What do you want?’ she said.
‘Do you know a young man called Barry Cooke?’
‘Never heard of him,’ she said defiantly.
‘No? He was on that lineup with me. He was standing right next to me. Short, hair tied back, scruffy.’
‘You’ve got a nerve coming here.’
She had pulled herself together. I’ll give her that; she was strong-willed.
‘Barry Cooke’, I continued, ‘is the man the police think killed Sophie Marshall. They were hoping you’d identify him.’
‘I identified you. It was you I saw.’
I smiled and looked at the floor between us. ‘The police are trying to pin down Barry Cooke.’
‘So what?’
‘So… you could help them.’
‘What?’
‘You could remember something about the man you saw that night. You could… change your mind.’ I reached into my jacket pocket and brought out an envelope.
‘What’s that?’ she said, curious now.
‘Money, a lot of it. A one-off payment for your cooperation. ’
‘You want Cooke convicted?’
‘I want someone convicted, and it may as well be him.’
Well, hadn’t I left Sophie’s body that way on purpose, remembering Cooke’s MO? Hadn’t I taken her money and jewellery? But I hadn’t counted on Cooke having such a strong alibi. I hadn’t counted on there being a witness.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘take the money.’
‘But it was you I saw that night.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ I said, feeling this to be the truth. What did it matter, a brief affair gone badly wrong? A threat to tell wife and colleagues? A chase through an alley? What did any of it matter in the wider scheme?
‘You killed her.’
‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘But you did, and now you want to fit up Cooke.’
‘What I want,’ I said quietly, ‘is to give you some money. What have you got to lose? The police didn’t believe you when you pointed me out at the lineup. They’ll never believe you. You might as well take the money and tell them some other story.’
She came towards me, her eyes on the envelope. I handed it up to her. She took it and placed it on the mantelpiece. ‘Barry Cooke,’ she said quietly.
‘Short,’ I said, ‘grubby, with a ponytail and spots and a few missing teeth. He’s mugged women before. You’d be doing society a favour.’
She stared at me. ‘Right,’ she said sourly. ‘A favour.’
I stood up and buttoned my jacket. ‘I think we understand one another,’ I said. Then I walked out into her hall. I was opening the front door when she called to me. I turned. She was standing in the living-room doorway. She had the cigarette in her mouth, her eyes slitted against the smoke, and she was hauling at the hem of her T-shirt with both hands, tugging it up. I didn’t realise what she was doing. Then I saw. There were strips of tape on her stomach, and a thin snaking black wire attached to a black transmitter. She was bugged.
I yanked open the front door and Jack Preston was standing there in front of me.
‘Hello, Roddy,’ he said.
We sat in Interview Room A, having a chat.
Jack explained it all quite quickly. How Gayle Afflick had seen me in the courts, the day her boyfriend Ray was up for assault, and how she had recognised me as the man she’d seen that night. Her boyfriend told her I was a solicitor, and this worried her. Who would take her word against that of a solicitor? She knew one decent copper, someone who might believe her: DI Jack Preston.
That time in Jack’s office, it had been a setup, neatly played by Jack and Halliwell to get me into a lineup, where Gayle Afflick could identify me. Jack wanted to see how I’d react, what I’d do. He had a good idea I’d want to talk to the witness afterwards.