Bright Spark (41 page)

Harkness
quickly closed the gap, dropped his knees onto Braxton’s shoulders, feeling and
hearing something crack in the ribcage, and shoved his head into the dirt. A
fraction of a second later, Slowey descended on the youth’s legs before he
could start to thresh. Harkness’s hand had found no hair to grip and the
youth’s head twisted sideways to emit a spluttering bellow of rage and pain.

“Don’t
suffocate the daft bastard,” implored Slowey.

“Give
me your hands, Kevin,” shouted Harkness into the youth’s ear as he unclipped
his cuffs.

The
youth bucked and twisted, whipcord muscles carving a shallow trench of his own
but failing to move the bulk pinning him down. A siren throbbed, a spike in the
city’s muted pulse of traffic noise, distant but drawing near. Something else
snapped inside Braxton. With a familiar and creeping panic, Harkness thought he
might have gravely damaged someone with his unsubtle physicality. Then he felt
the shuddering rhythm of anguish and saw that the youth was sobbing carelessly
into the dirt.

“You
want to do the honours, mate?”

Slowey
had managed to make straddling the youth’s legs look comfortable and had already
produced and begun to write in his notebook. His skewed tie and un-tucked shirt
were the only evidence that he’d done anything more dynamic than smoothing down
a new page.

“Just
give me a minute, Sarge. I’ve got so many things to nick him for, I hardly know
where to start.”

“So
pick your favourites.”

Harkness
allowed his gaze to settle again on the remains of Keith Braxton. Only the
mound of his belly, the tips of his boots and his clogged nose and eyes now
protruded from the soil that had claimed him. Harkness wondered what else he’d
sunk into this ground and how long it would take to uncover it all. The
discarded spade rested nearby, its once smooth blade now chipped and serrated
save where a paste of hair, blood and skin blunted it.  He waved at the
approaching caged van as Slowey began to intone the offences for which Braxton
was being arrested with the tired solemnity of a hanging judge.

Leaving
Slowey to process Braxton into custody, Harkness sought out Brennan and Newbould,
finding them together in Newbould’s office. The DI scribbled the latest
developments onto the whiteboard that had now been augmented by two others on
adjoining walls while the DCI practised his putting action with a club he
occasionally used as a swagger stick.

“Nice
of you to drop in, Rob,” said Brennan. “Found me some drugs then?”

“Not
exactly, boss.”

“No.
Nothing so simple. Found me another body, didn’t you?”

“That’s
true. But we’ve got the killer so think of it as another detected crime for the
books.”

“Don’t
take the piss,” said Brennan, flicking the club up to point at Harkness’s face.
“Take a seat and wipe that smirk off your face, you lanky smartarse. And you
can tuck your shirt in. And sort your tie out.”

“For
the record, Rob,” began Newbould as Brennan resumed his putting practice and
Harkness adjusted his clothes using the grubby shaving mirror hanging on the
rear of the office door. “What exactly have we got here?”

“The
warrant turned up no drugs at Braxton’s house,” began Harkness, slouching on a
chair with what he hoped would be an irritating degree of insouciance. “But we
did find the hard drive from the Friars’ Vaults. Mrs Braxton spotted us before
we spotted her coming back from the shops. She tipped off Keith before we could
stop her.

“Keith
and Kevin had a contretemps at their allotment. Before we could intervene,
Kevin had polished off his old man with a spade and started to plant him with
the spuds. Luckily for us, the abused schoolgirl’s mother had found the
allotment and given Slowey directions. I left uniform minding the scene and
turned out SOCO. We’ll need the Home Office pathologist again but I thought I’d
leave that to you, sir.”

“In
my day, we delegated down, not up. What else?”

“The
site will need to be searched thoroughly once the murder scene’s been wrapped
up. A drugs dog for sure. Pro-active are still chipping away at the house
looking for hidey-holes but I think the allotment’s our best bet.

“Then
the connection to the Murphy murders has to be explored. Assuming we can substantiate
it. But we’ve got a cast-iron connection between Kevin and the Friars’ Vaults
job and a pretty good idea that Murphy and the Braxtons were more than just
neighbours.”

“Can
we use ‘a pretty good idea’ as evidence?” asked Newbould.

“I’m
working on that. We’ve got a statement from inside prison about Murphy’s
dealing. It mentions an allotment but that’s hardly a clincher and it doesn’t
name names beyond Murphy and Firth. But the hard drive might give us something
useful.”

“So,”
said Brennan, kissing a seamless two-yard putt into a coffee cup. “We need to
crack on and interview this kid.”

“He’s
stoned,” said Harkness. “Hysterical. Traumatised. Perfect, really. Ready to
pop.”

“Are
you seriously suggesting we subject him to a murder interview before he’s
compos mentis?” said Newbould. “Have you ever read PACE?”

“The
sooner the better, subject to medical permission,” said Brennan. “As long as we
stay legal, balls to his rights. Let’s get him while he’s rattled. He and his
dad were a pair of bad bastards and this one’s got a lot to tell us.”

“I
always admired your instincts as a detective, sir,” said Harkness.

“I’ll
go and see the Super.” Brennan dropped his putter into the umbrella stand and
reached for his jacket. “To make sure it all goes tickety-boo in custody. Oh,
and with that in mind, Slowey will be running these interviews, Rob. You’re
riding shotgun, taking notes and keeping your silly fat mouth shut. I’ll be
watching. If you misbehave, I’ll have you interviewing Mrs Braxton and she’s
uglier and scarier than either one of us.”

       Slowey
had dabbled in neuro-linguistic programming, using language to charm or goad
suspects into the truth. He had no delusions of expertise; his timeworn patter
was based partly on his CID course and mostly on the biography of a TV
illusionist.

His
were the techniques that middle-managers might pick up at  corporate junkets,
at least the ones who wanted to manipulate themselves or their minions into
finding nirvana in the successful marketing of toilet tissue, or elitist pride
in sleeping in the office. Slowey had inverted the lexicon of positive
reinforcement, seasoning his amiable questions with hints of guilt, shame and
unworthiness. If he was patient and lucky, and the suspect was suggestible,
they would eventually mirror both his harmless body language and his choice of
words. Guilty secrets would then attach themselves to those words and float to
the surface as confessions.

       If
faced with a stronger-minded and belligerent suspect, Slowey would become an
infuriating pedant, challenging the choice of one word over another and
demanding definitions, forcing his victim to free-associate, confront the gaps
in their logic, reveal their inner workings and either concede defeat or froth
and fume like bad liars. If the less cunning suspect actually hated Slowey,
that could be a boon; Slowey’s assertions about their character and motivation
would leave them desperate to contradict him and incriminate themselves.

       He knew
his limits and was frequently reminded that serious criminals with serious
minds would never deviate from their two-word script – ‘no comment’ – unless it
suited them to do so. The truly self-possessed would never allow themselves to
care about him or his opinions. Nor did solicitors indulge his experiments,
unless they loathed their client or fancied a nap on the government’s shilling.
Other cops used humour, aggression, long and controlled silences or dousing
themselves in sickly after-shave to tilt suspects off-balance. Slowey relied on
patience, logic and a finicky exactitude he’d finally found a good use for.

       Given
a suspect willing to play the game, Slowey would scribble reams of notes in
which to find knots and fraying strands of logic, then uncoil what he’d learned
into a good length of rope with which to hang a bad liar. Even the most irksome
lawyer could barely object to police officers asking open questions and
listening attentively.

       Yet Braxton
seemed intent on ignoring the script and denying Slowey his chance to shine,
leaving him feeling like an angler watching a pike leap into his net before
he’d even unpacked his thermos or cast his line. 

       “I
killed him. Killed him proper,” said Braxton, leaning towards the tape
recorder. “Smashed his fat fucking head in. Just me. Kevin Francis Braxton.
With my own bare hands. And that bastard’s spade. Called me a nonce. Got his
own good fucking hiding for a change. Ain’t a nonce now, am I? There. Charge me
up. I’ll do my stir. Who’s the big man now, eh? Come on, what else you got?
Fuck all, that’s what. Who’s the daddy, eh? Eh?”

       Slowey
patiently continued with the preliminaries dictated by the cue card glued to
the table, explaining the caution, the pros and cons of asserting the right to
silence and the free availability of legal representation. He noted for the
tape that Kevin had declined such representation and invited him to explain
why, if only to demonstrate that his will was his own.

       “Ain’t
got nothin’ to hide from you pricks. Don’t need a fucking suit to hide behind.”

       “There’s
an awful lot of
hiding
going on, Kevin,” ventured Slowey, setting aside
best practice and beginning with a challenge. Harkness glanced at him,
surprised, then continued picking at his teeth with a thumbnail and doodling in
his notebook, feigning apathy. “I reckon
hiding
is all you can do. Just
a big
kid
really, aren’t you? Bit of a
daddy’s
boy.”

       “I
know you lot,” began Braxton, slouching in his chair, arms crossed, snorting
derision while his bare feet beat a nervous tempo on the threadbare carpet.
“You saw me. Hiding, was I? I don’t hide from nothing.”

       “Do
you mean you don’t hide from anything?”

       “What
I said.”

       “No.
You said, ‘I don’t hide from nothing’. That’s a double negative. It means you
do
hide
from everything.”

       “Bullshit.”

       “And
you’re hiding now. ‘Bullshit’ tells me
nothing
. Which means you’re
hiding
something
.”

       “Screw
you, prick.”

       “Not
that I mind. You’re a grown-up now. You’ll talk to me or you won’t. But you’re
hiding
and you haven’t even got the balls to admit it. If you need to
hide
from
me, just say so. Be a man about it. Or have you lost your balaclava this time?”

       “You
saw me with your own eyes, you daft bastard. Killed my old man….” Braxton’s
voice ebbed. He gulped, wiped his eyes, gripped the edge of the table and
glanced from side to side as if he’d lost his bearings. “You ain’t found no
balaclava….”

       “Yes,
Kevin. Saw you. By accident, I
happened
to see you. Burying your old
man. Burying your drugs. Burying your dirty little secrets. The dead kiddies.
The abused schoolgirl. ”

       “Not
hiding!”

       “The
dead kiddies across the road. Lot of
hiding
going on, Kevin.”

       “I
killed him.”

       “Yes,
and you hid him. And you’re
hiding
the rest. Just admit to me that
you’re
hiding
the rest of it. No, hang on, you can’t, can you? Almost
forgot. You’re not man enough. You’re such a
daddy’s
boy.”

       Braxton
gripped the table’s edge and shoved. Finding the table bolted down, he rocked
backwards on his chair. Spitting and sobbing, he allowed it to topple from
under him, rolled to his feet, picked it up by its back and flung it against
the wall, buckling its legs and tripping the panic alarm recessed into the
tiles. Harkness froze, half standing, as Slowey gripped his forearm.

       “Let
him blow itself out,” said Slowey as the wailing of the panic alarm resonated
through the custody block and pounding feet approached. He put down his pen as
though he were laying down his arms. “Just call off the cavalry, would you? And
get a new chair while you’re out there. We’ll be alright now, won’t we Kevin?
There’s a good lad.”

       Kevin
stood squarely, shoulders bunched, forehead lowered, arms wide, ready for the
onslaught, ready for all comers. His frown intensified as nothing happened and
continued to happen. Harkness slipped out of the room in defiance of all his
instincts, closing the door gently behind him. Slowey reclined in his chair,
hands behind his head and yawning as if he were sandwiched between Mrs Slowey
and the kids on his old sofa watching yet another reality-TV show.

       “For
the benefit of the tape,” said Slowey, as Braxton backed himself into a corner
and slid to the floor, “Kevin became understandably distressed by the subject
matter. A chair broke beneath him, causing him to lose balance. DS Harkness has
stepped out of the room to find a replacement. Would you agree with that version
of events, Kevin?”

       “Yeah,”
offered Braxton, eyes darting as if his mind sought something familiar to
anchor itself to. While Slowey had half-expected to be attacked by Braxton, the
gamble had paid off. He’d confirmed that Braxton was driven more by fear than
by malice. He was also self-interested enough to prefer a show of cooperation
to the fists of the dozen or so cops summoned by the panic alarm.

       “Coffee?”
Would the cornered animal accept succour or bite his hand, thought Slowey. “You
hungry?”

       “Four
sugars. White.”

       Harkness
returned, relieved to find Braxton on the floor and Slowey in one piece.
Satisfied that he wouldn’t need both hands free, he leaned out and dragged in a
new chair. He then loomed over Braxton, knuckles pressed to the table, while
Braxton meekly took a seat.

       “And?”
added Harkness.

       “And a
biscuit.”

       “And?”

       “Please,”
he muttered.

       “Two
white coffees,” Slowey summarised. “One with four sugars. Oh, and one for
yourself, Sarge.” Slowey grinned and nodded as Harkness shook his head,
shrugged for the CCTV camera recessed into the ceiling and left the room again.

       “That’s
my boss, by the way,” said Slowey, leaning across the table to confide and
glancing at the still turning spindles of the tape recorder. “Bit of a grumpy
bastard. Wouldn’t say it to his face, though.”

       Braxton
shrugged. Had he been wholly indifferent, he’d have stared at the wall, at the
flaking enamel and gouged-in obscenities on the table before him, at the
rhythmically tutting clock. But a shrug was a response, an engagement with the
process.

       “Anyway,
here’s the thing. You may think this is your typical good cop, bad cop,
tactical police bollocks, but it’s not that simple. Not this time. He’s bad and
I’m slightly less bad. You see, he and I disagree on a few things. For example,
he thinks you killed ‘em all; your dad, Murphy, Murphy’s wife and kiddies…”