‘Not yet. The union usually provides one in the morning.’
‘Curious, that,’ Holt sniffed, ‘seeing as you’re not in the union.’
Williamson shrugged. ‘We’re all on the same side.’
‘Not this time.’
‘What do you mean?’ Again, Williamson looked past Holt, towards the door.
‘Ian,’ said Holt firmly, ‘look at me. Don’t worry about him.’
‘Who is he?’ Williamson asked again.
‘Look at me. This is a very serious matter.’
‘So I nutted the bloke, fair enough, I admit it.’ While talking to Holt, Williamson kept his gaze fixed on the guy by the door, trying, unsuccessfully, to get him to make eye contact. ‘You were there, anyway. You saw what happened. You could see that it was a reflex action. Self-defence. He came out of nowhere and-
Holt sighed. ‘PC Johnson will be fine, Ian. It may well be that we never get round to pressing charges on that one.’
That one?
‘However, GBH is the least of your worries.’
Grievous bodily harm? Just for twatting the bloke? What could they give me for that? Williamson wondered. Then he finally realized what the inspector had said. ‘What do you mean?’
Holt glanced over at the guy in the suit, who gave the slightest of nods. ‘You are going to be charged,’ he said quietly, ‘with the murder of Beatrice Slater.’
The inspector had his full attention now. Trying to put as much distance as possible between them, Williamson pushed himself back into his chair. ‘What?’ he spluttered.
‘Beatrice Slater,’ Holt repeated.
Listening to his heart trying to burst out of his chest, Williamson took a couple of deep breaths and tried to clear his head. Think!
‘She was murdered.’
Wondering if it made him look guilty, Williamson took another deep breath. ‘I know,’ he said finally, ‘I read about it in the Gazette.’
Holt clasped his hands together, as if in prayer. ‘You killed her,’ he said quietly.
Williamson shook his head. ‘I didn’t even know her.’
‘That’s a lie, Ian.’ Holt shook his head sadly. ‘We know you met her several times. She supported the strike, like you. When some scab put a brick through her window, you went round to help clean up.’
‘So if I helped her, why would I kill her?’ Williamson demanded.
‘We have witnesses.’
‘What witnesses?’
‘Look,’ he said gently, giving it the father confessor routine, ‘this is a very clear-cut case. You will get a Legal Aid lawyer in the morning. Once you are processed, things will move very quickly. She was a little old lady. You sexually assaulted her.’
‘No-’
Holt held up a hand. ‘The machinery will not stop. They’re going to throw the book at you. We just wanted to have this little chat with you first to see if we can make things easier. What’s happened can’t be undone but we can sort things out quickly. Mrs Slater didn’t have any family, so, frankly, the Director of Public Prosecutions will be happy to do a deal.’
Stunned, Williamson folded his arms. His eyes lost their focus and his bottom lip started to tremble. Then he started to cry.
That’s taken the wind out of your sails, the MI5 man thought cheerily.
‘So,’ Holt continued, ‘if there’s anything you want to tell us now, that would be the sensible thing to do. It will save everyone a lot of time and effort. We will make sure that the DPP take into account that you have cooperated fully and it will count heavily in your favour when it comes to sentencing.’
Leaning against the doorframe, Palmer watched the suspect drop his head in his hands and begin blubbing like a baby. The enemy within, he mused, what a total shower. With a bit of luck, this shabby provincial affair would be wrapped up in the next twenty-four hours. Then he could get back to London, hopefully never to return to this utter hell hole.
NINE
The day shift was safely inside and the forces of law and order could claim another victory. Carlyle glanced at his watch. They had been standing on this patch of waste ground for almost three hours now, eyeing the hundred or so flying pickets two hundred yards away, on the other side of no man’s land. It was a blisteringly hot day and, so far, no one had summoned up the energy for a ruck. The boredom was driving him mad.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Charlie Ross approaching, striding down the thin blue line, like an emperor inspecting his troops.
Standing to his right, Dom let out a groan. ‘Oh great,’ he complained. ‘That’s just what we need, another pep talk from the pintsized Scottish psycho.’
‘The old git is never happy unless we have a full-scale scrap,’ Carlyle mused, gesturing towards the pickets. ‘He’ll be scheming about how to wind up those buggers over there so we can claim they started a fight and go in, truncheons flailing.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Dom kicked at a stone lying on the ground, sending it flying a couple of yards through the dust in the sergeant’s direction.
Ross watched the stone arrive at his feet and looked up at Dom. ‘I hope you’re not waiting for Arsenal to call, son.’
‘I’m a West Ham man,’ Dom sniffed.
‘I hear that they’re desperate,’ the sergeant cackled, walking in front of the two constables, ‘but even so, I don’t think they’ll be in for you.’
‘Even if they were, I’d say “no”.’ Dom gestured across the battlefield. ‘Professional football could never be as much fun as this.’
Charlie nodded solemnly.
You probably believe it, Carlyle thought, wiping a bead of sweat from under the peak of his helmet.
Taking a step forward, Dom lowered his voice. ‘I hear that they’ve found the bloke that killed that woman.’ He gestured over his shoulder, towards the woods where Beatrice Slater’s body had been found.
‘I understand that bloke’s been charged,’ Charlie mumbled, not keen to be talking about it. ‘But that’s nothing to do with us.’
‘It’s still a result,’ Dom said equably.
‘Like I said, son,’ Charlie said grimly, ‘it’s not our problem. We did the locals a quick favour, that’s all. Job done. Forget about it.’
Quick? Carlyle harrumphed. That’s very easy for you to say; you weren’t the one who was stuck with the body all bloody night.
A cheer went up and the three of them looked around. A longhaired striker had sprinted across no-man’s land and smacked an unsuspecting officer round the back of the head, knocking off his helmet. Scooping the helmet out of the dirt, the miner plonked it on his head and began sprinting back towards his own lines. Red-faced and panting, the officer set off in pursuit, spurred on by a rage of abusive catcalls and hand gestures from his colleagues. Unable to close down his quarry, the officer made a despairing attempt at a rugby tackle. As he landed face down in the dust the cheers reached a crescendo. Meanwhile, the thief reached the relative safety of his own lines, tossing his prize high into the air.
‘Unlucky,’ Dom grinned. ‘He should have caught the guy though.’
‘Who was it?’ Carlyle asked.
‘Who do you think?’ Charlie Ross grunted. ‘Only our good friend Trevor bloody Miller.’
‘You’re kidding,’ the two young constables laughed in unison.
The sergeant shook his head sadly. ‘Nah, it’s him. It’s not the first time, either.’ He pointed towards those enemy lines. ‘Those buggers are like lions preying on buffalo. .’
Dom gave Carlyle a quizzical look. Lions? It was the first time they had ever heard the old sod refer to the other side in anything other than the most disparaging terms. Was he going soft? Maybe it was the heat.
‘They can sense the weakest member of the herd and hunt them down.’
‘That’s Trevor,’ Carlyle laughed.
‘Yeah,’ Dom chimed in, ‘the runt of the litter.’
Back at RAF Syerston, the two constables dumped their gear and headed straight for the canteen. Sitting at trestle tables thirty feet long, heads down, they worked their way steadily through the evening meal — boiled beef, potatoes and green beans, followed by jam sponge with custard — in exhausted silence, encased in the background noise of three hundred other coppers doing the same.