Six
It was received wisdom that once a murder investigation had been opened, the first forty-eight hours after the discovery of a body were the most crucial.
Evidence – whether forensic or physical – needed to be gathered quickly before it disappeared or became corrupted and unreliable.
Witnesses had to be interviewed while incidents remained fresh in their minds.
Leads had to be sniffed out fast and acted on.
Sometimes, though, you didn’t need any of that stuff.
‘Bit of a breakthrough on the Ezra Simmons murder,’ Xiu said.
Miller looked up from his desk. He’d been at work for a -couple of hours already and, with no update on the murder weapon from Priya Acharya and no sign of Imran coming good on the CCTV front, he’d spent the morning exercising his deductive brain; honing what were already highly developed skills of logic and deduction.
Wordle.
Three medium-level sudokus.
The Blackpool Gazette’s ‘coffee time’ crossword.
Xiu said something else, but Miller was certain he’d misheard her. He pushed what had turned out to be a surprisingly tricky crossword away and blinked at his partner. ‘Sorry, Posh, I didn’t quite—’
‘I said, I’ve arrested someone.’
‘Oh, right.’ Miller sat up a little straighter. ‘Were you bored, or … ?’
Xiu stared at him. ‘I arrested the man who walked into the station half an hour ago and claimed responsibility for the death of Ezra Simmons.’ She waited. ‘Our murder victim?’
‘OK. Well, in that case it sounds like you did what any first-rate detective would have done. So, good job.’
‘I don’t see why it’s a good job,’ Xiu said. ‘It’s just the job.’
‘Of course it is, and I’m sure you did it perfectly.’
‘What else could I have done?’
‘Well, you could have given him tea and biscuits but, on balance, considering the situation, I’d say that arresting him was very much the right decision.’
There was the hint of a twitch around Xiu’s right eye as she passed her arrest sheet across. The details supplied by the man who was now in custody. ‘He’s down in the cells, but once you’ve had a chance to read through that, they’ll bring him up to Interview Room Two.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’ Miller began looking through the information as Xiu moved away. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any biscuits, have you?’
She answered without turning round. ‘I have zero biscuits.’
‘Fair enough,’ Miller said. ‘I was hoping that maybe you’d brought some in with you. Bit of a long shot, I know that, but talking about them just then made me suddenly fancy one.’ He looked up to see that Xiu had gone. ‘A nice ginger snap or something.’
‘You’ve been in trouble with the police before, haven’t you, Mr Cheshire?’ Xiu glanced down at her notes. ‘Ten years ago? Arrested for assaulting a police officer.’
Barry Cheshire looked embarrassed more than anything.
Apologetic. ‘I was going through a bad time back then. Drinking a bit. I was finding it hard to adjust … you know? After coming out of the army.’ He reached to smooth down greying, fly-away hair and straighten the collar of a well-worn anorak.
‘They dropped the charges in the end, thank God, which was very good of them.’ He managed a nervous smile, but it vanished almost immediately.
‘I’m not actually in trouble now, though, am I? ’
‘A man was killed,’ Xiu said.
‘Yes, I know, and it’s obviously my fault, but it genuinely wasn’t deliberate. It was all because of the dogs.’ He looked around at the pale yellow walls of the interview room, glanced up at the camera in the corner, then lowered his head and shook it. He began to breathe heavily.
‘Are you all right, Barry?’ Miller asked.
Cheshire looked up, seemingly bemused. ‘I didn’t think there’d be any of this, that’s all.
I thought if I just came in and explained, it would all be sorted out.
’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve always been a bit like that, to tell you the truth.
Hoping for the best, you know? Always looking on the bright side, even when I’m having rotten luck.
I was the same in the army, in the last place on earth anyone could see a bright side.
Rest of the lads used to take the mickey … ’
‘Well, we’ll certainly try and sort things out,’ Miller said.
He was usually quick to get a sense of who and what he was dealing with in these situations, and staring at the wide-eyed and freshly shaved individual in front of him he found it hard to believe they were talking to a cold-blooded murderer.
That said, of course, Miller had been wrong before, and when it came to signifiers of guilt a confession did tend to figure pretty high on the list.
‘It was an accident, that’s all.’ Cheshire looked from Miller to Xiu and back. ‘A stupid accident.’
So, manslaughter maybe, Miller thought.
‘I was unlucky. I’ve been unlucky a lot, lately.’
‘Not as unlucky as Mr Simmons,’ Xiu said. ‘So, how—’
Miller leaned across the table. ‘Where did you serve?’
Cheshire’s fingers began drumming against the table. ‘Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan.’ His head dropped again and the words did not seem to come easily. ‘Five tours in all.’
‘That’s a lot.’
‘Yeah, I suppose. Six months at a time. Eight in Afghanistan.’
‘What unit?’
‘Fifth … Fifth Regiment Royal Artillery.’
‘I’m guessing it wasn’t a walk in the park.’
‘No … it wasn’t.’
Next to him, Xiu cleared her throat impatiently, so Miller nodded towards her. ‘Talking of which …’
‘Tell us what happened on the evening you encountered Mr Simmons in Claremont Park,’ Xiu said. ‘Please try not to leave anything out.’
Cheshire sat back and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and nodded, as though thinking hard to recall the details.
‘Now’s your chance to explain,’ Miller said.
Barry Cheshire nodded.
‘So take your time.’
Miller and Xiu sat and listened to Cheshire’s story. A confrontation between two dogs followed by one between their owners. A stumble, a push, a man with a knife falling over his own dog and Barry Cheshire’s horror the following day at hearing that a body had been discovered in the lake.
When he’d finished, Cheshire looked at them. ‘Like I said, it was unlucky.’ He nodded at Xiu. ‘And yes, obviously a lot more so for the other bloke, not being able to swim or whatever—’
‘You pushed him, you said?’
‘No, not … I sort of fell into him. It was actually one of his dogs that did the pushing.’
‘I see.’ Xiu scribbled something down, then opened her mouth to say something else, but wasn’t given the chance.
‘How’s Ruby doing?’ Miller asked.
Xiu turned to look at him. ‘What?’
‘Oh, she’s not too bad,’ Cheshire said.
‘Glad to hear it.’
‘Thanks for asking.’ Cheshire had brightened up suddenly. ‘Well, she’s even more nervous than she was before, obviously, but no physical issues, thank God. Yes, there’s a bit more involuntary weeing indoors, but that can’t be helped.’
‘Same thing I tell myself,’ Miller said.
‘That’s down to her back injury, though. She doesn’t have the control any more. I can’t get cross, because it’s not her fault, is it?’
Xiu had heard enough and was clearly not interested in canine weeing, involuntary or otherwise. ‘So, moving on, we’ll obviously be doing what we can to check out your story, and in the meantime—’
‘How are you going to do that?’ Cheshire slumped back in his chair, helpless. ‘There wasn’t anyone else there.’
‘We’re still canvassing the area,’ Xiu said. ‘Continuing to make inquiries.’
‘That’s right,’ Miller said. ‘We are. Continuing.’ He knew that the house-to-house operation had actually been entirely fruitless thus far, and that save for a few ducks and some squirrels they were unlikely to identify any other witnesses.
But even he understood that it was rarely a good idea to tell a suspect that you had bugger all.
Xiu stood up. ‘Someone will escort you back to your cell.’
Barry Cheshire nodded, resigned.
‘Have you had a cup of tea or something?’ Miller asked.
‘No, but that would be nice,’ Cheshire said.
‘I’m sure we can sort one out. No biscuits, though, I’m afraid. Sorry to say that someone neglected to bring any in this morning.’
In the incident room, Xiu said, ‘Why did you ask him how his dog was?’
Miller did not think it was one of her more incisive questions. ‘Because I wanted to know. Didn’t you want to know? Don’t you like dogs?’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘What about disabled dogs?’
‘It didn’t get us anywhere, is the point. It wasn’t relevant.’
‘I don’t think it much matters,’ Miller said. ‘He obviously didn’t kill Simmons.’
‘If he was telling the truth.’
‘So, you don’t believe him?’
‘There’s the small matter of Simmons’s head wound.’
‘Don’t get me wrong, that’s definitely a big fat fly in the ointment,’ Miller said. ‘But seriously, does Cheshire look like a drug dealer to you?’
‘What he looks like is neither here nor there,’ Xiu said. ‘The fact is that, as someone who’s ex-armed forces, it would have been perfectly possible for Cheshire to disarm the man who was threatening him. The man whose dog had viciously attacked his own, much-loved pet—’
‘Ruby.’
‘Again, not relevant,’ Xiu said. ‘Easy enough for Cheshire, having done that, to pick up a rock or a branch or whatever was to hand and smash Simmons over the head with it. Then it would just have been a question of disposing of the body in the lake and concocting a ludicrous story about the victim tripping over his own dog.’
‘It saddens me to say this, and it’s not the first time I’ve thought it, Detective Sergeant Xiu … but you are a deeply suspicious person.’
‘It’s my job to suspect him, Miller.’
‘Even so—’
‘He’s a suspect.’ Xiu turned away, exasperated, and when she turned back again she saw the piece of paper that Miller was holding out to her.
‘This arrived yesterday,’ Miller said. ‘I’d like to know what you think.’
Xiu took the letter and read it. ‘I don’t …’ She handed it back. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say. How do you feel about it?’
Miller looked down at the letter, feeling every bit as nauseous as he had the first time he’d seen it; that same chill spreading through him as the key words jumped out. Entitlement. Lump sum. Widower’s pension.
One hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds.
Twenty-five thousand pounds per annum in perpetuity.
‘You must have known it was coming,’ Xiu said.
Miller nodded. ‘I’d forgotten about it … tried to forget about it. Now, all I want to do is tear this up and tell them where they can stick their money.’
‘That would be stupid.’
‘Yes, obviously … but it’s blood money and it feels wrong to take it.’
‘I know it must seem like that,’ Xiu said.
‘Like this is what she was worth, you know?’ Miller waved the letter around angrily. ‘All she was worth. Like they’ve totted it up and put a price on her.’
Xiu took a step towards him. ‘I’m really sorry you’re feeling that way.’
Miller smiled sadly and nodded. He folded the letter and put it back into his pocket. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘If they could whack another fifty grand on top, I wouldn’t have any complaints.’
‘What? I know you’re joking, but how could you even …
?’ Xiu had never met Alex, but seemed to regard her as though the woman had been a saint.
She had evidently decided that someone who was forced to put up with such inappropriate comments on a daily basis must definitely have had the patience of one.
‘Alex would have laughed at that,’ Miller said.
‘She would have been humouring you, that’s all.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ Miller manufactured another smile to mask the jolt of pain. The truth was that Alex had made him laugh, all the time. For all the wisecracks and stupid jokes, he hadn’t really laughed at anything since her death.
‘Have you thought about what you’re going to do with the money?’
‘Well …’ Alex had asked the same question herself the night before and, for once, it had felt to Miller as though she knew the answer.
Or at least the answer she wanted to hear.
‘Well, I was thinking of spaffing most of it on a trip to Rio,’ he had said.
‘Six months, maybe, in a five-star hotel. After an orgy of high-end drink and drugs, I’ll probably treat myself to a few stupidly expensive guitars and blow what’s left down the casino.
’ The stern expression on Alex’s face had not been remotely sexy, and now Xiu looked to have found Miller’s suggestion every bit as horrifying.
‘Are you genuinely asking me what I think about this, Miller?’
‘I would like to know, yes.’
‘Or are you just being stupid?’
‘Sorry, Posh,’ Miller said. ‘I thought I could do both.’