A Killing Resurrected (40 page)

‘In that case, let's get started,' Paget said, ‘and tell me if I'm right. We're pretty sure that Roger Corbett and John Chadwell were members of the gang who robbed Bergman's jewellery store and killed two people, but were you also a member of that gang?'

Taylor nodded. ‘And so was Steph,' he said, and went on to explain that the whole bizarre series of events that year had begun as a student prank. ‘We were down from university for the Christmas holidays, having a few drinks in a pub one night, when someone mentioned a recent robbery where the man was caught within hours, because of some idiotic mistake, and we decided that any one of us could do much better. So we had another round of drinks and started talking about “the perfect robbery”.'

Taylor fell silent, frowning slightly as if trying to recall the scene. ‘Steph didn't say much at first,' he said. ‘She just listened to us babbling on for a while, then proceeded to pick our plans apart, bit by bit, and said she could do better than the rest of us put together. So we challenged her to prove it – and she did.'

Tregalles eyed Taylor sceptically. ‘Are you trying to tell us that the robberies were all your
wife's
idea?' he said. ‘The baggy clothes, the flash cards, and remaining silent?'

‘It's true,' said Taylor, ‘and whether you choose to believe me or not, it was also her idea to use the iron bars as a means of intimidation.

‘We thought it was brilliant,' he continued, ‘but Steph wasn't finished. She said it was all very well for us to sit there in a pub, pissed to the ears, and talk about it, but we would never know if it would really work unless we tried it out. She said that she was prepared to put it to the test, and, to put it plainly, asked the rest of us if we had the guts to follow her.'

Taylor made a face. ‘I make no excuses for my part in all this,' he said. ‘Even pissed as I was at the time, I could hear warning bells going off in my head, but I was very much in love with Steph, and there was no way I was going to appear to be a coward in her eyes. I suspect the others had misgivings as well, but in the end we all agreed.

‘But the one thing we lacked was transport, a getaway van and driver, and once again it was Steph who came up with the answer. Barry Grant. The kid was a whizz with cars, and we all knew he'd stolen cars as a youngster. He'd always fancied his chances with Steph and he'd do just about anything she asked of him.'

Taylor stopped to massage his temples with his fingers. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea?' he asked. ‘I'm getting a bit of a headache, and my Paracetamol tablets were taken away with the rest of my things last night.'

Paget nodded to the uniformed Constable seated by the door. ‘See what you can do,' he told him. Then he said, ‘Interview suspended at nine twenty-eight for a short break,' and shut off the tape. He sat back and studied Taylor, who had his eyes closed. He was puzzled by the lawyer's apparent willingness to tell them everything. He must realize better than most that he was facing a life sentence, yet it didn't seem to bother him.

‘
Is
it just a headache?' he asked Taylor. ‘Or is it something more serious?'

Taylor opened his eyes and shook his head. ‘It's stress,' he said. ‘I'm finding this harder than I thought it would be, but I'll be fine once it's over. Will it take much longer?'

‘That very much depends on you, but there will be questions.'

Taylor nodded. ‘I understand that,' he said. ‘And thanks for the break.'

Tregalles sat fiddling with a pencil, brows furrowed as he tried to work out what was going on. Taylor was no fool; he must understand that he was digging his own grave, and yet he didn't seem to care. Paget seemed to be taking it at face value, but there had to be something behind it. After all, the man was a lawyer, and as far as Tregalles was concerned, you couldn't trust any of them.

The tea came, together with a couple of tablets, and the interview resumed.

‘The Rose and Crown was chosen,' said Taylor in answer to Paget's question, ‘because John Chadwell had been out a few times the previous summer with the landlord's daughter, and he knew how they cashed up each night. The night of New Year's day was chosen simply because there would be three nights' takings on the table.

‘We all went back to university, feeling very smug and proud of ourselves for having pulled it off, and I thought that was the end of it, but when we were all back home again during the summer holidays, Steph started prodding us to do at least two more robberies to prove that our success with the first one wasn't just a fluke. She even had the next target picked out: the weekly poker game at the home of Walter Roach, which she knew about because her father had been a regular player there at one time.'

Taylor sipped his tea. ‘The second robbery went like clockwork as well. Barry hid the van in the shed behind the Grant house until it was time to get rid of it, and we divided the money between us, equal shares.' He wrinkled his nose as if in distaste for what he was about to say. ‘I should tell you that when the plans were first discussed, the proceeds of the robberies were to be returned anonymously to the victims, but because we all had very large student loans, greed raised its ugly head and that idea soon went by the board.'

‘Is that why you decided to rob the jewellers next door to the bakery?' asked Paget. ‘The lure of all that money, the jewellery, the gold, the silver, which I'm sure you must have known about, either from your father or Sam Bergman himself?'

Taylor nodded. ‘I knew about it, of course,' he said, ‘but once again it was Steph who took that knowledge and put it all together, and it became the next target. To tell the truth, the idea of doing something like that so close to home scared the hell out of me, but Steph talked me round as she always did.' He sucked in his breath. ‘I know I should have shown more backbone, but I couldn't back out without appearing to be chicken, and I wasn't prepared to take the chance of losing Steph, so I went along with it, and so did John and Roger.'

‘And Barry Grant,' said Paget. ‘We know from the notes he left behind, that he was on lookout in the lane. But he must have been facing away from the bakery, because he didn't see your father come out and go next door. He said there was a struggle and someone's ski mask came off. You were inside, so tell us what happened.'

Taylor looked away. ‘It was Steph's,' he said. ‘Suddenly Dad was there right next to Steph and it stunned us all. I don't think any of us could believe it, and it wasn't until he grabbed Steph and ripped her ski mask off that any of us moved.

‘Of course he recognized her straightaway,' Taylor continued. ‘He had her by the throat, and I can still remember what he said to this day. He said, “You thieving little bitch! You're just like your father. And you thought you were going to marry my son?” Then he slapped her across the face so hard it knocked her down.'

Taylor took a deep breath and looked straight at Paget. ‘I didn't stop to think,' he said. ‘I had the bar in my hand and I simply lashed out blindly. He fell forward, hit his head on the corner of the counter, and went down next to Steph. There was blood all over his head. Emily Bergman started to scream and John hit her to make her stop, then kept on hitting her until she was dead. Then Roger was sick all over the floor. It was sheer pandemonium in there.

‘Steph scrambled to her knees and felt for a pulse on Dad's neck, then she looked at me and shook her head and said, “I'm sorry, Kevin, but he's dead.”'

Taylor picked up the mug of tea and drained it, then held it with both hands as if to warm them. ‘It was a nightmare,' he said. ‘I couldn't think, I couldn't speak; I couldn't move, and Steph finally had to scream at me to take Roger out, while she and Chadwell stayed behind to “take care of things”.

‘I don't remember much of the next twenty-four hours. We changed clothes in the van, then they dropped me off where I'd left the delivery van, and I just sat there, trying to calm down and pluck up the courage to go back to the bakery.

‘I remember the police being there in the lane when I got there; I remember my brother telling me that Dad was dead, and I remember I was scared to death for fear David would figure out the real reason I'd asked him to cover my rounds for me that morning.'

Taylor set the mug aside. ‘As I said, I don't remember very much about the rest of the weekend, but it was late Sunday evening when I received a call from Steph. She said she was parked a short distance down the street, and we had to talk, so I went out to meet her there. She said Barry was panicking, and something had to be done to persuade him not to do anything foolish. She'd arranged to meet him in the big shed behind the Grant house, where the van and the proceeds from the robbery were stored, and she wanted me to come with her.

‘Shortly before we got there, Steph said perhaps it would be better if she talked to Barry alone. She said she thought she might have a better chance or reasoning with him; that he might feel intimidated if both of us were there, and I was only too happy to agree with her.

‘We stopped some distance away from the house, and Steph went the rest of the way on foot. I don't remember how long she was gone, but when she returned, she was driving the getaway van, and she looked pretty shaken up. She said that Barry had confronted her with a loaded shotgun. He said he'd made up his mind; he intended to go to the police in the morning and tell them everything. Steph said she tried to talk him out of it, but the more she talked, the angrier he became. She made a grab for the gun. They struggled and it went off, killing Barry.'

‘Are you sure it wasn't the other way round?' Tregalles said. ‘It seems to me that your wife – sorry, your girlfriend
as she was then – is being blamed for just about everything now she's dead. It seems more likely to me that it was you who went to meet Barry Grant and it was you who killed him, then set it up to look like a suicide. I've met your wife, and I can't see her doing anything like that on her own, especially back then. She couldn't have been much more than a kid herself. What was she? Nineteen . . . twenty, maybe . . .?'

Taylor smiled tiredly. ‘Twenty-one,' he said, ‘and I don't blame you for wanting to believe the best of her. Steph is . . .
was
very persuasive, and I should know. God knows I made myself believe everything she told me for years. And I believed her then, because I
wanted
to believe her, and—'

‘You said Stephanie returned with the van?' Paget cut in firmly. ‘Please carry on, Mr Taylor.'

‘That's right. She drove the van and I followed in her car to the old strip-mine in Collier's Wood, where we set fire to the van, then drove back to town.'

‘What happened to the money, the jewellery, and the rest of the proceeds from the robbery?'

A dry, mirthless chuckle rumbled in Taylor's throat. ‘Good question,' he said. ‘Steph told me that Barry must have hidden it somewhere else, because she'd searched the shed and there was no sign of it. I believed her at the time, in fact I believed it right up until last night. But perhaps I can come to that later, because everything changed after John Chadwell and I left here yesterday afternoon.

‘We were walking to the car when I told John he would have to get someone else to defend him if he was charged with the murder of Roger Corbett and the beating of Sharon Jessop, because I believed he was guilty in both cases. He became angry, denied it and tried to bluster his way out, but when he saw that wasn't working, he admitted I was right about Mrs Jessop, but not about Roger, and his only regret was that he hadn't made sure that Sharon Jessop was dead.'

Taylor looked away. ‘And that was when he said if I didn't defend him, he would make sure that Steph would go down with him, not only for the death of Roger Corbett, but for killing my father as well. He also threatened to take me down as well, saying that he would swear that I had known what Steph was doing from the beginning.

‘I refused to believe him,' Taylor said. ‘At least, I didn't
want
to believe him, and yet I knew I couldn't leave it there; I had to talk to Steph and find out if what he'd said was true.'

He fell silent for a long moment, reliving once again a painful memory. ‘You see,' he said at last, ‘John told me that Steph had lied to me from the very beginning. He said my father was stunned but alive when Steph told me he was dead. He said she lied deliberately to make me believe that I had killed my father, then told me to get Roger out of there to get me out of the way so she could “finish the job properly”, as she told me yesterday.

‘And there was more. John said he was sure it was Steph who reacted to the reopening of the investigation by attempting to burn down the Grant house in case there was something to be found there. I didn't think to ask Steph about that last night, but I'm sure he was right. It would be one of those things that “had to be done”.'

Kevin looked up at the ceiling, more to avoid looking at either of the two detectives than for any other reason. Then he continued. ‘John then went on to tell me about Roger,' he said quietly. ‘John said when Roger phoned him after you talked to him in his office, he phoned Steph immediately to warn her that Roger might break down and start talking. He said she never even hesitated. She told him to meet her in the car park behind the Unicorn in fifteen minutes. Once there, he said Steph phoned Roger and told him to come out to his car, where she would be waiting to take him home.

‘He said Roger was barely able to walk by then, so the two of them bundled him into the passenger's seat of his own car, and Steph drove him home, while John followed close behind. When they got there, Steph told John to stay in his car and be ready to drive her back to town once she'd dealt with Corbett. He said she was gone about twenty minutes, and when she came back she was dripping wet, and spent most of the time on the way back drying herself off. He said she didn't tell him what she'd done, except to say they wouldn't have to worry about Roger any more. Back in town, he said Steph picked up her own car and went home, while he went into the Unicorn to ask if anyone had seen Roger. He stayed just long enough to make sure everyone would remember the time, then went home himself.'