Chapter 4 #2
Beside me, Laura took a deep breath. I sensed she was losing her patience, which didn’t happen very often.
But I sympathised. Gregory was sitting there with a smug look on his face now.
It never happened. At heart, men like Tom Gregory are still children.
Their response to being told off is to be indignant, to not understand, to say I didn’t do it.
It’s always someone else’s fault to people like him.
If it happens out of sight, if they can’t prove it, you’re all right.
I decided to needle him a bit.
‘Great logic, Tom. But you know what? We have the call logs and witness statements. Not to mention all the other actual convictions you have. Short temper, haven’t we?’
He glared at me. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Sometimes.’
While none of the charges relating to Vicki Gibson had stuck, others had. He had three convictions for assault and two for violent disorder. The usual drunken bar fights. One count of criminal damage too. Suspended sentences and fines for each offence.
‘Lose it when you’ve had a few, yeah?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Anger management issues.’ I shook my head. ‘You’re funny, aren’t you. People like you.’
‘Funny?’
‘Yeah. You always say you have trouble controlling yourselves. The red mist descends and you can’t help it. All that bullshit. But I don’t see you losing it with me. Controlling ourselves, are we?’
‘Maybe I’m counting to ten.’
‘Maybe you can. No, I don’t think so. The truth is that people like you are cowards. Right? For some reason, you only lose control when you can get away with it. Funny that, isn’t it? It makes me laugh.’
Tom Gregory just looked at me. I stared back, letting the silence pan out.
Rattling his cage was more enjoyable than it probably should have been, but I was angry.
Partly it was what he’d done in the past – the kind of man he was – and partly the attitude.
Maybe it was also the fact that, deep down, I suspected he was telling the truth – that he hadn’t killed her – and the possibility bothered me.
I settled back in my chair.
‘I didn’t kill her,’ he said. ‘I was at –’
‘Yeah, you said. Shut up.’
Gregory had already given his whereabouts the previous evening to the officers who’d arrested him earlier on.
He’d then given them to us as soon as we’d walked into the interview suite.
He’d been in O’Reillys Bar from six until throwing out time, somewhere between two and three, before leaving in the company of a middle-aged woman from the eastern quarter.
He’d spent the night at her flat. We’d picked him up at the end of his walk of shame, assuming he was capable of that emotion.
On the face of it, it was a solid alibi.
He certainly stank of alcohol and none of his clothes were bloodstained, despite it being obvious he’d been wearing them for a good twenty-four hours.
O’Reillys was a shitty, bare-boards half-club – a bar, pool tables and a flood-lit dance floor by the toilets – but it saw enough trouble for the owner to have installed CCTV.
It was also a fair distance from the grids.
The address he’d given for the anonymous lady of spectacularly poor taste was even further away.
I knew that area, and many of the blocks of flats there had cameras too.
So it was either a very good alibi or a very bad one indeed.
I said, ‘You were drunk last night.’
‘Yeah. So? That’s not a crime.’
‘But you managed to get through the evening without the red mist descending, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You sure about that?’
He didn’t reply.
The door opened then, and a young WPC pushed her head in and jutted out her chin, indicating that she’d like a word. Laura and I pushed back our chairs. But I didn’t need to speak to the WPC to read the expression on her face.
Tom Gregory had a very good alibi.
Back in the observation room, I ran my hand through my hair and stared at the small monitor, which showed Gregory still sitting in the interview suite.
Needless to say, my hair didn’t fall back down anything as neatly as Laura’s would have done.
I don’t primp for such eventualities. I rarely face them.
‘He has to have done it,’ I said. ‘He has to.’
‘But he didn’t. Face facts, Hicks. We have camera footage of him being everywhere he claims to have been. Putting it all together, it makes it impossible he did it.’
‘He could have paid someone.’
But that was grasping at straws. Deep down, I knew my theory was wrong, and I was going to need to rethink this whole thing.
‘He can barely pay his rent,’ Laura said. ‘Besides, the whole point of his record is he does things like that himself. He’s a creep, don’t get me wrong, but his violence is all impulsive, spur-of-the-moment stuff. He’s not the type to hire someone to do his dirty work.’
‘No, I know.’
‘Plus, why would that same person kill our homeless John Doe as well?’
‘All right, Laura.’
‘Hit men not being in the habit of throwing in a second, random victim for free. I feel the need to hammer these points home, so I know we’re on the same page.’
‘Unfortunate choice of words, but yes. We are.’
On the screen, the same WPC who’d given us the bad news entered the interview suite, preparing to escort Tom Gregory out and back to the holding cell.
‘One killer,’ I said. ‘Two victims. The connection between them as yet unknown.’
‘I agree.’
I turned to her. ‘But there will be a connection, Laura. Nobody kills two people at random like that. There’s a reason. Something we’re not seeing.’
‘Ah. But you said before it was unlikely there was a connection between them.’
‘It was unlikely before. Now it’s the most likely explanation. You see how this works, right? It means I’m not technically wrong. I’m just altering my theory to fit the presently available facts. You should try it.’
Laura smirked. ‘What about him?’
I looked back at the screen. Tom Gregory was gone now, so I reached out and flicked off the feed switch, and the screen went blank.
‘No reason to keep him in,’ I said.
‘No.’
I checked my watch.
‘But we’ve got another sixty-eight hours before we need to charge him with anything. So let’s keep him in for a bit.’
‘Why? What’s the point?’
‘Because I don’t fucking like him.’
I turned away and walked towards the door.
‘That’s the point.’