Cath Staincliffe - Ruthless

They were.

Except it wasn’t that simple. Noel Perry, on being brought into the interview room with his lawyer, saw Lee and performed in true knuckle-dragging style. ‘I’m not talking to him.’

The solicitor tried to intervene but Noel wasn’t having it. ‘I’m not talking to some fucking ape in a suit.’

‘Mr Perry,’ Mitch said, ‘abusive language is not acceptable.’

‘So fucking sue me, I ain’t talking to any niggers.’

Gill was watching the unsavoury display, on playback. Lee and Mitch beside her.

‘You OK?’ Gill said.

Lee smiled. ‘Nothing I haven’t heard before. You want to put Pete in?’

‘No way! No lowlife tosser sits in my station and uses that sort of language against one of my officers then gets to call the shots. On the other hand you do not have to take that sort of abuse. Your shout. You go back in, if you’re happy to, and if he won’t play ball then move straight to charge.’ She had paused the video. It showed Noel Perry, eyes blazing, lips pulled back showing his teeth, the tendons in his neck taut like ropes. Every mother’s dream .

‘A pleasure,’ said Lee.

Neil Perry had a sneaky, sly look to him from the start. Cat got the cream. Even the way he sat was cocky, legs wide apart like his balls were the size of grapefruits whereas Rachel knew that steroids made them shrivel. His were probably pea-sized. Like his brain.

‘Mr Perry,’ Rachel said, ‘I want to talk to you some more about the death of Richard Kavanagh. Yesterday you told me you were in Langley on Wednesday evening but we have several eyewitnesses who saw you in Manorclough. Can you explain that to me?’

There was a light in his eyes, not intelligence, not even low cunning but some kind of twisted humour.

‘Must be seeing things. Tapped, probably mental.’ He gave a sickly grin. He’d not brushed his teeth and they were yellow, gummy around the edges.

‘You were also questioned about the presence of gunshot residue on your clothing. Residue which indicated you had fired a gun. How did that residue get on your clothes?’

‘No idea,’ he yawned.

Rachel stifled the reflex to yawn herself. She spoke more quickly. ‘You were unable to account for petrol traces found on your clothing and footwear. Perhaps you could tell me how that got there?’

‘It’s a mystery,’ he said and smiled again. Almost like he was high. But he’d not be able to get drugs in the police station, it was more secure that way than prison, where the drug trade thrived. Half the saddos in jail were addicts and if they couldn’t get stuff smuggled in they’d try making mind-altering substances from cleaning fluids or anything else. She remembered the twins’ father had died from a lethal batch of prison hooch.

‘Mr Perry, have you anything to add?’ she said, wasting her breath but it was important for the record to extend the invitation.

He shook his head.

‘Please wait a moment.’ She got to her feet.

‘You married?’ he said, grinning.

Rachel glared at him. Tosser.

‘You got a ring on. That’s just for show, innit? You’re a muff muncher, i’nt you?’

She wanted to slap his fat, smug face. As she reached the door, he said, ‘All right then, I did it, I shot him. And I set him on fire. I confess.’ The grin widened, showing his gums, and a bead of blood burst on the sore by his mouth.

Fuck me! Perry’s lawyer looked as shocked as Rachel was but the turnaround accounted for why Perry had been smiling like a loon.

‘We would like to get a new statement from Mr Perry in the light of this admission of guilt,’ Rachel said to the solicitor.

‘Go for it,’ Neil Perry said.

Rachel announced that they would begin again in half an hour. Which would just give her time for a fag, a very large coffee and a chance to talk to Godzilla and find out what the other twin was doing.

Elise suggested taking flowers too but flowers didn’t seem right to Janet. They could send some for the funeral if that’s what Vivien and Ken wanted, the card would be enough for now. She said this to Elise, who answered, ‘Just a card?’

‘You could include a note, something personal about Olivia, your memories, what a good friend she was.’

Elise’s face compressed and she turned away. They were in a café. Janet couldn’t get Elise to have anything to eat but she had drunk a milkshake and Janet had a coffee. She’d had far too much coffee in the last forty-eight hours, could feel her nerves singing with false energy. Hard to resist though. There was a television on in the corner, the sound muted, thank God, as the news began with Olivia as the top story. Pictures of Olivia were everywhere. Time and again Janet’s stomach turned over, still not desensitized to the image of the girl who’d been part of their lives in such a shocking context, still not ready to accept the reality of her death.

‘You don’t have to do it all today,’ Janet said. ‘We could drop a card round now and then you can send something more when you’ve had time to think about it.’

‘OK,’ Elise said quietly.

She chose a card without a message, rejecting all the condolence cards with pictures of doves and crosses and phrases that she said were tacky. The card had a white background, embossed with shells, almost abstract. Janet had a pen in her bag.

‘What shall I put?’

‘Keep it simple,’ Janet said, ‘maybe that you’re thinking of them?’

Elise wrote nothing for long enough and Janet was beginning to get impatient. ‘How about we send it from all of us?’ Janet said.

Elise shook her head. She finally put pen to paper. ‘It’s not right.’ She showed Janet.

I am so very sorry. Olivia was the best, most brilliant, loving and caring friend I ever had. I will miss her so much. And I am thinking of you all.

‘It’s fine, it’s lovely. Come on.’

There were several cars on the road outside the house. More family, Janet assumed, come together in support. Janet pulled in across the driveway entrance.

‘Don’t knock, just post it,’ Janet said. ‘They’ll have all sorts going on right now.’

Elise nodded. She got out of the car, leaving the door ajar, and ran up to the porch. At that moment the front door opened, Ken appeared, showing some visitors out. A couple, the man looked like Ken. His brother perhaps?

Elise stood to one side. The pair left.

‘Elise,’ Ken said. He was white, drained.

‘I just brought this.’ Janet could hear Elise. Then she heard Vivien call from inside. ‘Ken?’ Then louder, ‘Ken? Is that Elise?’

Vivien came to the door. Janet got out of the car, ready to explain they were passing, when Vivien said to Elise, ‘How dare you!’

Elise recoiled as if she’d been slapped. ‘How dare you come to my house when you gave her… you. After what you’ve done.’

Ken was talking, trying to restrain his wife. ‘Vivien, don’t. Just leave her, let’s go in.’ But Vivien was frantic with distress. ‘She wouldn’t have been there if-’

‘Elise.’ Janet reached her, took her arm.

‘I’m sorry,’ Elise, her face bright red, said to Vivien.

‘You stupid little fool,’ Vivien cried.

‘That’s enough,’ Janet said, ‘it wasn’t Elise’s fault. It was nobody’s fault.’

‘Rubbish! If it hadn’t been for your bloody daughter, Olivia would still be here!’

Other people, alerted by the noise, appeared behind Vivien and Ken in the hall. Ken took Vivien’s shoulder, she thrust his hand away angrily.

Janet was trembling with adrenaline, anger bubbling inside but, determined to defuse rather than inflate the situation, she spoke slowly, emphatically. ‘What happened was an awful, awful tragedy. It was an accident. It could’ve been Elise who died, or anyone else at the party. The girls were there together, they thought the world of each other. You know that.’